Charlie Daniels, a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame who sang "The Devil Went Down to Georgia," recorded with Bob Dylan and was a vocal supporter of U.S. veterans, died Monday morning after suffering a hemorrhagic stroke. He was 83.

Daniels' death was confirmed by his publicist, Don Murry Grubbs. He is survived by his wife, Hazel, and son, Charlie Daniels Jr.

By the time the Charlie Daniels Band topped the charts with “Devil” in 1979, the instrumentalist, singer and songwriter had long established a remarkable, multifaceted career in Nashville. As a session musician, he played on three of Bob Dylan’s albums — including the revolutionary “Nashville Skyline” — as well as recordings for Ringo Starr and Leonard Cohen.

He was a fixture of the touring circuit for the next 40 years, became a tireless advocate for servicemen and women, and entered the information age as one of country music's most outspoken conservative voices.

Born Oct. 28, 1936, in Wilmington, North Carolina, Charles Edward Daniels grew up inspired by church music and local bluegrass bands. He listened to Nashville’s WSM and WLAC, which streamed country and R&B music from Music City all the way through Daniels’ radio speaker in North Carolina.

Daniels merged those sounds in the mid-1950s to create rock band The Jaguars, which most notably recorded instrumental single “Jaguar,” in Fort Worth, Texas, for national distribution via Epic Records. In Texas, he’d connect with producer Bob Johnston, who — years later — Daniels would credit with helping him find his way as a songwriter and sought-after session player in Nashville.

In 1964, Daniels and Johnston co-wrote “It Hurts Me,” a single cut by Elvis Presley that proved the first victory in decades of songwriting success to come.

“(Elvis) recorded it, and it was by far … the biggest thing that had ever happened to me in my life,” Daniels once said.

Three years passed before Daniels and his distinct country-rock influence would pull into Music City. Living in Newport, Kentucky, with his wife, Hazel, and 2-year-old son, Charlie Daniels Jr., the seasoned stage player headed South with ideas of substituting beer joint stages for session work in Nashville.

And Daniels rolled into Nashville — literally, as he told The Tennessean in 2014 — beginning a five-decade stay in Middle Tennessee.

"I came to Nashville in 1967, with the clutch out of my car and a ($20) dollar bill," Daniels told The Tennessean in 2014. "I didn't fit the Nashville type very well. I'd come out of 12 years of playing bang-slang, balls-to-the-wall music in clubs, and I played too loud and too bluesy.

With Johnston’s help, Daniels carved his name in the late 1960s and early ‘70s as a marquee Nashville player, working with the likes of Starr, Cohen and, most notably, Bob Dylan.

In 1969, Johnston called Daniels to pinch hit for an absent guitarist during a Dylan session at Columbia’s historic Studio A. After the session, Daniels heard nine words from Dylan that would change his life.

“I don’t want another guitar player,” Daniels, in a 2019 interview with The Tennessean, recalled hearing. He recited each syllable delivered with an excitement untouched by five decades: “I want him.”

He’d finish the Dylan sessions — what would be “Nashville Skyline,” an album considered one of the most influential out of Music City in the late 1960s — and returned for two more albums with the freewheelin’ Midwesterner, “Self Portrait” and “New Morning.”

“Dammit, it was just fun,” Daniels said in 2019. “It was a very pleasant experience.”

The life of a session sideman wouldn't stick, though. He'd cut a self-titled debut album in 1970, forming the Charlie Daniels Band — or CDB, as it was known for decades at concert theaters, state fairs and race tracks — in 1971.

A bearded embodiment of fast-fiddlin' Southern life, Daniels cut a handful of solo efforts in the early 1970s, none more notable than "“Fire on the Mountain” — the Platinum-selling release that spilled into mainstream country success. Daniels would proceed to sell more than 13.5 million records, per the RIAA, logging nine Gold, Platinum or multi-Platinum releases.

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“We’re sitting on the upstairs porch looking at the northern horizon and watching America light up, fireworks going off all over the place,” he tweeted on July 4. “You may tear down statues and burn buildings but you can’t kill the spirit of patriots and when they’ve had enough this madness will end.”

But in his twilight years, Daniels also continued to relate to the countercultural heroes he once played with. In 2014, he covered “The Times They Are a-Changin,” “Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall” and others on a full album of acoustic Dylan covers.

"All these things, they're just all part of my life," he told The Tennessean in 2014. "It all adds up. And whatever differences you may have, there are 12 notes of music in the world where you can find common ground."

In 1994, Daniels returned to the gospel music that influenced him as a child, releasing his first Christian album, “The Door.” The record would yield Daniels his first of three Grammy Award nominations for Southern gospel recordings. He’d earn his last Grammy Award nomination in 2005, for Country Instrumental Performance on “I’ll Fly Away.”

At age 70, he joined the ranks of country music stalwarts enshrined as a Grand Ole Opry member. He’d regularly perform on the 94-year-old country music radio tradition until his death.

“To be able to be a member and to have my name linked with my heroes is some pretty heady stuff for a guy that loves music and loves the Grand Ole Opry as much as I do,” Daniels once said.

Beyond the Opry, Daniels was a fixture of touring circuit until COVID-19 brought the industry to a halt this year.

"We play over one hundred cities every year and they’re all special in their own way, but when you get a chance to bring it all back home, especially when so many of your friends are joining you, it don’t get much better than that," Daniels said in 2019.

In 2016, Daniels earned a top honor for any Nashville musician: A place alongside the all-time greats in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. Entering at nearly 80 years old, he joined Randy Travis and Fred Foster for the year’s Hall of Fame class.

He was “weak” and speechless when hearing the news he would be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, Daniels told The Tennessean in 2016.

“I’m so glad it went this way,” Daniels said. “This is the cherry on top of the icing. It doesn’t go any further. That’s where the cake stops.”

https://www.tennessean.com/story/enterta...ies/5384087002/