Brash, down-home singer bridged country, rock
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Charlie Daniels, the singer, songwriter and bandleader who was a force in both country and rock for decades, bringing a brash, downhome persona and blazing fiddle work to hits like “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” died on Monday in Nashville. He was 83.
His publicist announced the death, at Summit Medical Center in the Hermitage section of the city, saying the cause was a hemorrhagic stroke.
Daniels made his first mark as a session musician in the late 1960s and early ’70s, playing guitar, bass, fiddle and banjo on Nashville recordings by Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr and Leonard Cohen. He also produced albums for the Youngbloods, including the group’s 1969 folk-rock touchstone, “Elephant Mountain.”
But his greatest acclaim came as the leader of the Charlie Daniels Band, a country-rock ensemble that hosted the Volunteer Jam, the freewheeling Southern music festival, established in 1974, that featured Roy Acuff, Stevie Ray Vaughn, James Brown and the Marshall Tucker Band.
Modeled after the Allman Brothers, another regular act at the Jam, Daniels’ band used dual lead guitarists and dual drummers in the service of an expansive improvisational sound that included elements of country, blues, bluegrass, rock and Western swing.
Charles Edward Daniels was born on Oct. 28, 1936, in Wilmington, N.C. His mother, LaRue (Hammonds) Daniels, was a homemaker, and his father, William Carlton Daniels, was a lumberjack who played fiddle and guitar. Charlie Daniels followed suit, learning to play both instruments while in school before forming his own group, the Jaguars, in the late 1950s.
His numerous honors included the Pioneer Award by the Academy of Country Music in 1998 and the BMI Icon Award at the 53rd annual Country Music Awards in 2005. He joined the cast of the Grand Ole Opry in 2008, the same year he celebrated his 50th anniversary in the music business. In 2016, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Survivors include his wife of more than 50 years, Hazel Juanita Alexander Daniels, and their son, Charles William Daniels Jr.