RIP Charlie Daniels - Dead at 83

[VaBeach_Eagle]

Country music legend Charlie Daniels dies at 83

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The musician's reps confirmed his cause of death

By Tyler McCarthy | Fox News

Country music legend Charlie Daniels dies at 83

Country Music legend Charlie Daniels, best known for his monster 1979 hit "The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” died Monday of a hemorrhagic stroke.

Country Music legend Charlie Daniels, best known for his monster 1979 hit "The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” died Monday of a hemorrhagic stroke. He was 83.

According to a press release from his representatives, the acclaimed Country Music Hall of Fame and Grand Ole Opry member died at Summit Medical Center in Hermitage, Tenn., where doctors determined his cause of death.

Daniels accumulated a slew of accolades and awards during his long career in music, including his induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Musicians Hall of Fame and becoming a member of the Grand Ole Opry. He also won a Dove Award for gospel albums and a coveted Grammy Award for best country vocal performance by a duo or group.

While The Charlie Daniels Band had numerous hits and remained a staple in Country music radio, his most enduring hit was a tale of a young man named Johnny who challenged the devil to a fiddle-playing contest and came away with a violin made of gold.

"The Devil Went Down to Georgia” was No. 1 on the country charts in 1979 and No. 3 on the pop charts. It was voted single of the year by the Country Music Association.

"Few artists have left a more indelible mark on America's musical landscape than Charlie Daniels. An outspoken patriot, beloved mentor, and a true road warrior, Daniels parlayed his passion for music into a multi-platinum career and a platform to support the military, underprivileged children, and others in need,” a statement from Daniels’ representatives reads.

In addition to his music, Daniels was a major advocate for several causes that were close to his heart including supporting the U.S. military with The Journey Home Project, which he founded in 2014 with his manager, David Corlew, to help veterans.

"My manager, myself and some other people started this Journey Home Project to help — we've come to find out there is a great need for assistance by veterans who are returning from their service. Most of the people that we deal with haven't gotten that," Daniels told Fox News in 2019.

"We all know the agencies that are tasked with helping our military people are bureaucracies that, by nature, grind slow," Daniels added at the time. "So there are immediate needs and slow bureaucracies, and we kind of step in and try to help out."

Charlie Daniels performs at the CMA Music Festival at Nissan Stadium on Thursday, June 9, 2016, in Nashville, Tenn.  (Al Wagner/Invision/AP)

Daniels also worked closely with the Jason Foundation, a Nashville-based nonprofit started by a father who lost his teen son to suicide. Daniels previously said that after looking at the data, he knew he could help veterans and needed to educate people on just how close to tragedy we might be at any given moment.

According to The Tennessean, Daniels is survived by his wife, Hazel, and son, Charlie Daniels, Jr.

Daniels, a singer, guitarist and fiddler, started out as a session musician, even playing on Bob Dylan's "Nashville Skyline” sessions. Beginning in the early 1970s, his five-piece band toured endlessly, sometimes doing 250 shows a year.

"I can ask people where they are from, and if they say `Waukegan,′ I can say I’ve played there. If they say `Baton Rouge,′ I can say I’ve played there. There’s not a city we haven’t played in,” Daniels said in 1998.

Daniels performed at White House, at the Super Bowl, throughout Europe and often for troops in the Middle East.

He played himself in the 1980 John Travolta movie "Urban Cowboy” and was closely identified with the rise of country music generated by that film.

Daniels, a native of Wilmington, N.C., played on several Bob Dylan albums as a Nashville recording session guitarist in the late 1960s, including "New Morning” and "Self-Portrait.”

 

 

[The_Omega]

 

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Charlie Daniels: My Beautiful America

cnsnews.com/commentary/charlie-daniels/charlie-daniels-my-beautiful-america

Charlie Daniels' decorated career as a singer, song writer, guitarist, and fiddler spanned several decades. (Photo credit: Gary Miller/Getty Images)

This year, as we celebrate the 244th birthday of the greatest nation the world has ever known, we are beset with many problems, some of our making and some we have no control over.

But, be that as it is, America is still the greatest and I want to express my personal feelings about our beloved country, its magnificence, its beauty, and its diverse population.

Wishing all Americans a happy and reflective Independence Day.

--Charlie Daniels

"My Beautiful America"
 

Have you ever spent the late afternoon,

Watching the purple shadows deepen in the Arizona desert?

Or seen a herd of Elk plow their way

Through waist-deep snow on a cold Colorado dawn?

Did you ever see the sun go down in Hawaii

Or seen the stormy waves break over the rockbound coast of Maine

Or have you ever see an eagle fly up out of the mists of Alaska

Or a big October moon hanging full over the still Dakota badlands?

Have you ever tasted the gumbo in New Orleans, barbecue in Carolina

Or the chicken wings in Buffalo?

Have you ever had Brunswick stew in Macon, or cornbread in Birmingham?

Or briskets slow cook over hill country mesquite wood?

Did you ever drink the water from a gurgling branch in Utah,

Or stand on the mountain above El Paso Del Norte

And see the lights twinkling clear over into Mexico?

Did you ever jingle horses in the pre-dawn stillness of a perfect Texas day

And watch their shod hooves kicking up sparks on the volcanic rock?

Or tended a trotline on a foggy Carolina morning,

Or heard the distant love song of a lovesick whippoorwill

On a pristine Tennessee late night?

Have you seen the faces on Mount Rushmore or stood at the Vietnam monument?

Have you ever crossed the mighty Mississippi,

Or been to the Daddy of ‘Em All in Cheyenne, Wyoming

Or seen the mighty Vols run out on the football field on a chilly autumn afternoon?

Did you ever see the Chicago skyline from Lakeshore Drive at night

Or the New England foliage in the fall,

Or the summer beauty of the Shenandoah Valley,

Or Indiana covered with new snow?

Did you ever seen a herd of wild horses running free

Across the empty spaces of Nevada?

Or caught a walleyed pike out of a cold Wisconsin stream,

Or marveled at the tall ships docked in the harbor at Baltimore?

Did you ever see the early morning dew sparkling on the bluegrass,

Or the wind stir the wheat fields on a hot Kansas afternoon

Or driven the lonely stretches of old Route 66?

Have you ever heard the church bells peal their call to worship

On an early Sunday, in some small town in the Deep South?

Or passed through the Redwood Forest just as the sun was going down?

Have you ever been to Boise or Baxley or Beaufort or Billings?

Have you ever passed through Sanford or Suffolk or San Angelo?

Have you ever seen the falls at Niagara,

The Ice Palace in Saint Paul,

Or the Gateway to the West?

This then is America!

The land God blesses with everything

And no Eiffel Tower, no Taj Mahal,

No Alps, No Andes,

No native hut, nor Royal Palace,

Can rival her awesome beauty,

Her diverse population, her monolithic majesty.

America the Free

America the mighty

America the beautiful

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America

And to the republic for which it stands,

One nation, under God, indivisible,

with liberty and justice for all.

What do you think?

Pray for our troops, and for the peace of Jerusalem.

God Bless America

— Charlie Daniels

https://youtu.be/B2AEkfjc6-o

Charlie Daniels is a legendary American singer, song writer, guitarist, and fiddler famous for his contributions to country and southern rock music. Daniels has been active as a singer since the early 1950s. He was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry on January 24, 2008.

Editor's Note: Charlie Daniels published this piece, including lyrics from his song "My Beautiful America," on Friday, shortly before passing away on Monday. CNSNews.com interviewed Daniels in 2017:

 

 

 

[sameaglesfan]

RIP Charlie