I was incredibly saddened today to hear about the passing of the legendary Charlie Daniels. I had the fortune of seeing the Charlie Daniels Band play live a few years ago at the most famous venue in country music, the Grand Ol Opry, and thought I'd share some video with y'all.
Three years ago, my husband and I went to Nashville for the first time. As a lifelong country music fan and someone who works in country radio, I was very excited for the trip. We even planned our trip based on who would be appearing on stage at the Opry...we looked at the schedule online, saw that CDB would be playing one night in June, and thought, "What the heck, let's do it," bought the tickets, and planned a road trip around the show. I cried when the curtain came up. It was a really emotional and exciting night for me!
Charlie was incredible. At 80 years old (at the time of my visit), he was full of life and showed no signs of slowing down. He told the audience that he had met with a veteran and his family before the show, and then dedicated a performance of "Amazing Grace" to the family, since that was their favorite hymn, and of course, played his classic, "The Devil Went Down To Georgia" to close his set. It was amazing. I'm so grateful to have seen him play on that stage, and I'll never forget that night.
Here is a 4-minute video my husband took during the performance. You can see and hear his energy here. What an awesome performer!
Below is also my interview with Charlie, just before the CDB played at St Pete Beach Bikefest last fall. Always a pro, always a gentleman.
Rest easy, Charlie. We'll miss you.
Photos and videos are my own. I had to lower the video quality in order to post to Facebook (there's a partial internet outage at my house today, and the better quality video was too large to upload)...I promise the original video looked better! But the audio still sounds great.