Charlie Daniels
b. 28 October 1937, Wilmington, North Carolina, USA. Daniels, who wrote Carolina (I Love You) about his youth, was the son of a lumberjack and was raised with a love of bluegrass music. He borrowed a guitar when he was 15 years old and immediately learned to play basic tunes. He then acquired skills on mandolin and fiddle, but had to modify his playing when he lost the tip of his ring finger in an accident in 1955. He formed a bluegrass band, the Misty Mountain Boys, but the group changed to the Jaguars, following a single Jaguar, which they recorded in 1959 (produced by Bob Johnston. Daniels says that ‘for nine years we played every honky-tonk dive and low-life joint between Raleigh and Texas’. This enabled him to master a variety of musical styles, but his only national success came in 1964 when he wrote an Elvis Presley b-side, It Hurts Me, a tender ballad which remains one of his best compositions. In 1968, he followed Bob Johnston's suggestion to accept regular session work in Nashville. He played electric bass on Bob Dylan's NASHVILLE SKYLINE and later appeared on his albums, SELF PORTRAIT and NEW MORNING. He also worked with Marty Robbins, Hank Williams (on FAMILY TRADITION) and Ringo Starr (on BEAUCOUPS OF BLUES), and took Lester Flatt's place alongside Earl Scruggs. He produced an album by Jerry Corbitt, who, in turn, produced one by Daniels, both of which were released in the US by Capitol Records. The Charlie Daniels Band was formed in 1970 and they started recording for the Kama Sutra label. Although he was a multi-instrumentalist, he was a limited vocalist but was suited to the talking blues, Uneasy Rider, which made the US Top 10 in 1973. He followed it with his anthem for southern rock, The South's Gonna Do It. In 1974, Daniels had members of the Marshall Tucker Band and the Allman Brothers Band join him on stage in Nashville. It was so successful that he decided to make his so-called Volunteer Jam an annual event. It has led to some unlikely mixtures of artists such as James Brown performing with Roy Acuff, and the stylistic mergers have included Crystal Gayle singing the blues with the Charlie Daniels Band. When he moved to Epic in 1976, there was a concerted effort to turn the the band into a major concert attraction, despite the fact that at 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighing 20 stone Daniels was no teenage idol: he hid his face under an oversized cowboy hat. 
The albums sold well and, in 1979, when recording his MILLION MILES REFLECTIONS album, he recalled a '20s poem, Mountain Whippoorwill, by Stephen Vincent Benet. The band developed this into The Devil Went Down To Georgia, in which Johnny outplays the Devil to win a gold fiddle. Daniels overdubbed his fiddle seven times to create an atmospheric recording which topped the US country charts and made number 3 in the US pop charts. It was also a UK Top 20 success. In 1980 the band recorded In America for the hostages in Iran; and then in 1982, Still In Saigon, about Vietnam. The band were featured on the soundtrack for Urban Cowboy and also recorded the theme for Burt Reynolds’ film Stroker Ace, which featured Tommy Crain's banjo. (Daniels’ band has been very loyal to him with Taz DiGregorio playing keyboards from the late '60s.) In 1986 Daniels appeared in the television movie, Lone Star Kid, and published a book of short stories, but he still continues touring and playing his southern boogie.