Country music and fiddler fan Charlie Daniels, who was successful with “Devil Went Down to Georgia”, died at 83.
A statement from its publicist said that the Country Music Hall of Famer died on Monday in a hospital in Hermitage, Tennessee, after doctors said he had had a stroke.
He had suffered from what was described as a mild stroke in January 2010 and had a pacemaker implanted in 2013, but continued to work.
“I can ask people where they come from and if they say ‘Waukegan’, I can say that I played there. If they say “Baton Rouge”, I can say that I played there. There is no city we haven’t played in, “said Daniels in 1998.
Daniels has performed at the White House, at the Super Bowl, throughout Europe and often for troupes in the Middle East.
He played himself in John Travolta’s 1980 film “Urban Cowboy” and was closely identified with the rise of country music generated by this film.
“I have kept employees for over 20 years and have never run out of pay,” said Daniels in 1998. That same year, he received the Pioneer Award from the Academy of Country Music.
In the 1990s, Daniels softened some of his words from his early days when he was often involved in controversy.
In “The Devil Went Down to Georgia”, a 1979 song about a fiddler duel between the devil and a snooper named Johnny, Daniels first called the devil a “motherfucker”, but changed it to ” son of a pistol β.
In his 1980 hit “Long Haired Country Boy” he sang that he was “stoned in the morning” and “drunk in the afternoon”. Daniels changed it to “I get up in the morning. I come down in the afternoon. “
“I guess I softened in my old age,” said Daniels in 1998.
Otherwise, however, he rarely backed away from the words opposite.
Her “simple man” in 1990 suggested lynching drug traffickers and using child molesters as an alligator bait.
His “In America” ββin 1980 told the enemies of this country “to go straight to hell”.
Such a hard speech earned him guest seats on “Politically Incorrect”, the radio show G. Gordon Liddy and on C-Span taking comments from viewers.
“The Devil Went Down to Georgia” was No. 1 on the country charts in 1979 and No. 3 on the pop charts. He was voted single of the year by the Country Music Association.
In the climactic verse, Daniels sang:
“The devil bowed his head because he knew he had been beaten.
“He put this golden violin on the floor at the feet of Johnny.
“Johnny said,” The devil comes back if you want to try again.
“I told you once you’re the son of a gun, I’m the best that ever was.” “
He regularly organized Volunteer Jam concerts in Nashville in which artists were generally not announced in advance. Performers included Don Henley, Amy Grant, James Brown, Pat Boone, Bill Monroe, Willie Nelson, Vince Gill, Lynyrd Skynyrd Band, Alabama, Billy Joel, Little Richard, BB King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eugene Fodor and Woody Herman.
Daniels, from Wilmington, NC, appeared on several Bob Dylan albums as a recording session guitarist in Nashville in the late 1960s, including “New Morning” and “Self-Portrait”.
Finally, at the age of 71, he was invited to join the quintessence of the Nashville musical establishment, the Grand Ole Opry. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2016.
He said in 1998 that he continued so many tours because “I never played these notes perfectly. I never perfectly sang each song. I’m competing to be better tonight than yesterday and to be better tomorrow than tonight. ”
Daniels said his favorite place to play is “anywhere with a good crowd and a good salary.”