The Very Right-Wing Charlie Daniels Had a Very Left of Center Musical Sensibility

Country music legend Charlie Daniels, best known for his 1979 crossover hit "The Devil Went Down to Georgia", died of massive stroke this morning. He was 83.

In recent years, Daniels has been better known in recent years for his right-wing politics including his vociferous support for President Trump.

In this context, it would be hard to remember that the bedrock of Daniels' musical career is steeped in the counterculture. After all, after a decade as a struggling Nashville musician, it was Bob Dylan who in 1968 gave Daniels the opportunity to play on the country oriented Nashville Skyline (an album I have listened to since my early childhood days). He also appeared on Dylan's next two albums New Morning and Self-Portrait. 

Daniels also played bass, fiddle and guitar on Leonard Cohen's 1969 album Song from a Room which included "Bird on a Wire" and went on tour with him. Daniels described Cohen's music in this manner:

When I first heard “Bird on a Wire,” I didn't know what to think. Here was a truly unique artist, and his songs were so delicate that one out-of-place guitar lick could bend it out of shape. When you worked with Leonard, you had to listen closely and get in sync with what he was trying to convey. You had to interpret it in the same musical frame he was operating in. Sometimes it only called for a well-placed note or two, sparse but meaningful. I know that sounds philosophical and stilted, but so was Leonard's music. You needed to be in a certain frame of mind, and it was a challenging but satisfying experience.

In 1969, Daniels produced The Youngbloods' album Elephant Mountain which I have enjoyed for many years. He also played fiddle with The Marshall Tucker Band, a country-rock band best known for its use of the flute in many of its songs.

I would also add Daniels' first big hit "Uneasy Rider". Released in 1973 had a sympathetic long haired hippie as its protagonist trying to survive in the South. A few years later, Daniels' supported Jimmy Carter's White House bid. By the time Daniels appeared on the White House Rose Garden in June 1984 as a last minute substitute for The Gatlin Brothers at a fish fry for President Reagan and Members of Congress including House Speaker Tip O'Neill he was describing hippies as "pinko fags."

Over time, Daniels' songs had a more patriotic and reactionary fervor but even some of these sought some measure of common ground such as his 1980 hit "In America". Written in the midst of the Iran hostage crisis and a deep recession, Daniels wrote, "We'll all stick together and you can take that to the bank/That's the cowboys and the hippies and the rebels and the yanks." "In America" would earn renewed interest following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. I only wish it earned the same kind of interest during the COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020. R.I.P.