CHARLIE DANIELS HAS GONE HOME

"Charlie Daniels has died."  That was how the article began.  Those four words stunned me.  I felt my heart ache and a lump develop in my throat.  Charlie Daniels has been a big part of my life since the early seventies.  I loved his music.  I loved his presence.  I loved his patriotism.  I loved the way he shared his faith.  I loved his morals to which he strove to live by. Charlie Daniels was a special man who God had gifted him music as a path to speak out on other issues. 

Apparently he died at the age of 83 due to complications from a stroke.  The catalogue of his works has been closed.  There will not being any new songs that reflect his beliefs in story form.

The important thing to know about the man, and he would often remind people of the fact, was that he was human.  He had been a Christian most of his life but did not necessarily live a perfect Christian life, like all of us.  In the early eighties though, he was convicted to rededicate his life to God and he did it with all of the passion he could muster.  He became a spokesman of sorts that always carried the Christian message when he would talk.  His songs took on more of a Christian theme as his career progressed.  Most important, his fans could see the difference in his life and in his songs.  The man lived as he thought he should.

The Charlie Daniels Band was part of an explosion of southern rock/blues that came on the heels of The Allman Brothers monster album in 1971 "Live At The Fillmore East".  It seemed like overnight bands from the southeast United States were breaking into the charts causing a big change in the sound of the country.  The Marshall Tucker Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Grinderswitch, Jerry Jeff Walker, Elvin Bishop, ZZ Top, and Wet Willie led the way in the footsteps of The Allman Brothers.  It was almost like a revolution in the music industry and it took off in a big way.  Still more bands in the southern rock/blues genre would come along and keep the new sound alive.

Daniels loved the roots of the movement.  He promoted in every way he could think of.  One of his standard songs "The South's Gonna Do It" paid homage to all of the pioneers of southern rock.   His best known efforts though were an annual festival held in his home state of Tennessee called "Volunteer Jam".  I am not sure how many of these festivals he held but it was at least seven in my memory.  The first Volunteer Jam was made into a film that was incredible. 

Daniels stayed under the major music radar for many of his early years, which is a shame.  His early albums are masterpieces.  He was a perfectionist and a song had to earn it's way onto the latest album.  The result are that these albums do not have one throw away song on any of them and most people have not heard the majority of these great songs.  The songs on "High Lonesome", "Honey In The Rock", "Saddle Tramp", "Night Rider", and "Fire On The Mountain" are unbelievably good.

What a lot of these songs also reflect is that Charlie Daniels was truly an "every man's man".  He was one of the people.  He would not hold himself up as anyone's better but rather their equal.  He was just one of us and it came naturally to him.

I know this is a short writing.  I could write so much about how this man influenced me.  I do want to say this though.  Many of you have heard me write and talk about John Lennon, David Bowie,  and Lou Reed among others as some of my favorite artists and among the best.  Here is the thing though.  When you take the artist as a whole, as every facet of his life is brought together to see the big picture of who the artist is, in my mind there are three that stand heads above all the rest.  Ray Charles, Leonard Cohen, and Charlie Daniels.  Each of these men displayed the same life evolving aspects.  All three were true to their faith.  They each had a high sense of morals.  They each had a love of their country.  And all three of these men lived a life that truly reflected who they were as human beings.  There are not a lot of those in the arts today, especially the performing arts.

Charlie Daniels will be missed.  His music will live on.  New generations will discover it and Daniels will forever be a huge part of Americana.

Thank you Mr. Daniels.  You made my life richer.

MY COUNTRY? OUR COUNTRY!

I was not going to write anything about the turmoil that is tearing our country apart.  I tried to start writing about it once but things were changing so fast that my writing was woefully out of date after 24 hours.  Things have been moving fast ... too fast.  My perception of things will not agree with a lot of you and to be honest, I am to the point of not really caring one bit right now. The United States is being torn apart from within.  It is quickly becoming a country that I don't recognize and I feel it is changing for the worse.

Let me say one thing that I deeply feel is a true statement.  The vast majority of Americans, well over 99%, were shocked and outraged at the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.  I know I was.  I want those officers to be held accountable and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.  I want any cop that goes against his sworn oath and duty to be held accountable.  I also think that the police officers should be held to a higher standard when performing their job than ordinary citizens.  I would be willing to wager that most Americans, that 99%, feel the same way.  At the same time, the police should be given latitude for their actions in situations that are high stress with little time to think cognitively on how to deal with it.  A police officer must be able to think on his feet very quickly and to act in the most appropriate manner that he feels is justified.  It takes a special person to do that job and I for one am not equipped to be able to do it.

So what happened in our country to take us from total unanimity on the outrage of the actions of police officers dealing with Mr. Floyd to the subversion taking place in our country today.  Well, the story has been progressing for a long time.  For the sake of brevity let's just keep it in the recent past.  Let's say start in 1964 with the passage of the Civil Rights Act.   That Act was a huge step in our country moving forward.  No, it was not a cure all.  It would take the Supreme Court to take it and mold it to the Constitution.  As late as 1967, a full three years after the Civil Rights Act passed, interracial marriage was against the law in several states, including the great state of Missouri.  When the Supreme Court decided Loving v. Virginia in 1967, it was another very huge step towards bringing the Civil Rights Act to it's full potential to bring equality to all in this land.  We still had a ways to go and the Supreme Court is still to this day making decisions that are based on the Civil Rights Act.  Same sex marriages have been deemed to be under the umbrella of the 1964 Act.  Loop holes in racial equality continue to be sewn shut by the Court.  The police have been reformed somewhat by the Court as well.  The Miranda case is one of the biggest clamp downs on police in the last century making the police treat all people equal.  The decisions continue to be handed down from the Court and the country continues to strive towards that Utopian idea of total equality for all.  Where do I stand on the idea of full and total equality?  I am 100% for it.  I do not think our nation can survive without it.  The country continues to move towards that goal year after year and we will get there.  This I firmly believe.

Now many of you are probably thinking, why has it taken so long to get there?  Why are we still on that path toward total equality?  Well, the best answer I can give is that it is vitally important to not move too fast.  Some laws that are on the books might seem to be against the idea of equality but if we take a good look at them, they are important in the long run to keep equality instead of making it worse.  If we move too fast on such important matters, mistakes will be made and they could have devastating results for those that they are designed to help.  We should be careful and make changes methodically, rationalizing what we want the outcome to be and craft any new laws so that they accomplish what we intend to.  We are closer to real equality for all citizens of this country right now than we have ever been before.  We were anyway until a few months ago.  It has not taken long for a few political groups to start the dismantling of our country, our Constitution.  I feel like we are on a dangerous downhill path to the United States becoming unrecognizable.

So here we are.  The summer of 2020.  It has been 56 years since the  passage of the Civil Rights Act.  The country is only 244 years old.  Less than a quarter of our history as a nation has been under the conditions of the Civil Rights Act ... about 23% of our country's existence. That is not a very long time to bring forth such sweeping changes in different cultures, lifestyles and philosophies.  With every new generation though, a little of the old cultures, lifestyles and philosophies are discarded and it becomes more natural for the country to move towards the goal of equality for all as a greater percentage of the nation learns and believe in what is the right thing to do.  The right way to act and the right way to treat our fellow countrymen and human beings.

Ignorance still has a strangle hold on many members of our society though.  Those who are ignorant of what equality means, or what our country stands for are in the minority of the citizens of this country.  They are still out there though.  The ignorance pervades all cultures, all races, all religions and any other societal sect that there is, but they are thankfully still in the minority.  That is why I can look at this country and feel proud of  how far we have come in this pursuit.  Yes, we have a long ways to go, but we have come such a long ways.  That progress is in danger of being totally lost right now.  I believe the Great American Experiment is in danger of coming to an end. 

You know, for almost a week after Mr. Floyd's murder, we all stood as one.  It was horrible.  It was wrong.  The police officers who committed this crime should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.  There was no question about it.  Then the agitators came.  To me these organizations could and should be labeled as domestic terrorist organizations.  Suddenly our cities started to burn and unlike anything before, the destruction accelerated at a pace so quickly, we could not keep up with the latest developments.  Crime has become rampant as these organizations continue to push their political agendas.  They moved so fast and with so much destruction, we saw our police, our leaders kneel before these agitators which pleased them a great deal.  Now changes are being made and they are being made to quickly, without forethought or logic.  Changes that will change what the United States represent to the world.  Changes that could very well never be walked back.

Bits and pieces of the Constitution is at stake in my opinion.  Free speech has been greatly altered to allow only the proper ideas and thoughts to be expressed in public without being brought down by the wrath of the radicals.  I have already seen the idea of due process greatly inhibited and even tossed aside.  We are treading in dangerous waters.

If Dr. King taught us anything, it was that change can be brought about peacefully.  Our country seems to have forgotten that ideal.

I pray for our country.  I pray for our citizens.  I pray that this great country that stands for freedom unlike any other country in the world will survive this tragedy.  I pray for a civil discourse to solve these problems that we face.  I pray that we can make changes, real changes, but in a thoughtful, reflective and wise manner.

I pray for all .. ALL of my fellow Americans.  

May God bless the country and bring us back together and help us to continue moving forward to real equality for all of us.  That is my hope for the United States of America.