Country Music Hall of Fame member Charlie Daniels dies at 83

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. 

...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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