Although best known for his fictional duel with the Devil on a fiddle, Charlie Daniels and his band have been a driving force behind the Southern rock movement for more than five decades. The secret to success, Daniels says, is never letting the industry direct where the band was going.
“It’s been a blessing from the Good Lord that I’ve been able to do something that I have enjoyed so much for so many years,” he says. “We don’t follow trends and fads, we saddle our own horses and do our own thing. A big part of our career is doing great live shows. We put what we have into it every night and we love it.”
Born in North Carolina, Daniels started as a bluegrass musician and moved to Nashville with dreams of making it big. He became a go-to session musician and songwriter, writing a song for Elvis Presley and playing on Bob Dylan’s landmark album, “Nashville Skyline.”
In the early ’70s he formed The Charlie Daniels Band and over the last 40-plus years has been responsible for hit after hit after hit. There’s not a country fan alive not familiar with tunes such as “Long Haired Country Boy,” “The South’s Gonna Do It Again,” “In America,” and of course, “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”
The Charlie Daniels Band will be playing at the Hylton Performing Arts Center in Manassas on Wednesday, Nov. 19.
“With us, it’s never a problem of what to play, but what not to. We have so many albums and so many songs out, and we’ve been very blessed to have some songs that we cannot leave out of the set, because those are the ones that people come to hear,” Daniels says. “We normally build a skeleton around those songs we know we need to play and add in some new stuff, and revisit some old stuff.”
The lineup includes Daniels on fiddle, guitar, mandolin and banjo; Charlie Hayward on bass guitar; Bruce Brown on lead guitar; Pat McDonald on drums; Chris Wormer on guitar; and Shannon Wickline on keyboard.
“I love hearing my band play; I think they are all great and I look forward to their solos each night,” Daniels says. “It’s fun and challenging and a great way to live. I just love it.”
In his career, Daniels has been inducted into the Grand Ole Opry and the Musicians Hall of Fame, and also has a star on the Music City Walk of Fame.
“One of the most special things that happened to me was during a show in Nashville and I was in the middle of my third song and I heard someone hollering and Martina McBride came out on stage,” Daniels says. “She said, ‘you have been invited to become a member of the Grand Ole Opry’ and I was literally floored. That was a lifelong dream of mine.”
At 78, Daniels can still play the fiddle with the best of them, but admits that he does practice scales on the guitar to keep his fingers limber and ready for a show.
“I would like to say ‘thank you’ to all my fans because they have enabled me to live a dream,” Daniels says. “It’s been a lot of hard work and ups and downs and sideways, but it’s all been incredibly fun.”
Tickets for The Charlie Daniels Band range from $40-$60 and are available by phone at 888-945-2468 or online at HyltonCenter.org. Country artist Red Marlow will open for the band.
