Midnight Wind Plus

Charlie Daniels (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 15, 2009)
• Original Release Date: 2009
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Raven [Australia]
• ASIN: B002IRDE06
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #99,040 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Raven presents the classic CHARLIE DANIELS BAND Gold-selling album Midnight Wind with three bonus tracks from Volunteer Jam, on CD for the first time. Tennessee's Charlie Daniels Band are one of the great Southern Rock legends, right up there with the Allman Brothers, Marshall Tucker Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd etc. Originally released in 1977, Midnight Wind consolidated the incredible success of Fire on the Mountain (1975) and Saddle Tramp (1976). While it contained no breakout radio hits, Midnight Wind was chock full of everything fans had grown to love about Charlie and his band. Opening with one of Daniels' unmistakable cowboy stories, 'Midnight Wind', the album also contains the Tex-Mex romp 'Maria Teresa' and the downright beautiful 'Heaven Can Be Anywhere (Twin Pines Theme)' inspired by his wife Hazel and his middle Tennessee home, The Twin Pines Ranch. The trademark twin lead guitars of Daniels and Tommy Crain are prevalent on 'Grapes of Wrath', a foreshadowing of future hits like 'In America'. Perhaps the best known track is 'Redneck Fiddlin' Man'. Rounding out the set are smoking live versions of CDB hits 'The South's Gonna Do It', 'Sweet Louisiana' and Crain's 'Cumberland Mountain Number Nine' from Volunteer Jam III & IV. The Charlie Daniels Band has shown a whole generation of bands how to do it and they show no signs of letting up. With superb quality audio, detailed liner notes, color booklet.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's about time, finally on CD!!, March 20, 2010

By 

Bob Liberatore (White Haven, Pa.) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Midnight Wind Plus (Audio CD)

I've been waiting for this album to finally be released on CD for a real long time. If this is not the best Charlie Daniels Band album ever, which I think it is, it certainly is my favorite. The band was at their peak with the twin drum / twin guitar sound and of course Charlie's fiddle. Every song is great. If you like anything at all by Charlie Daniels don't give another second thought about buying this CD. The sound quality is superb, a treat to listen to. Much better than the vinyl transfer to cd I've been listening to for years. I still dont know why it took so long to release on CD but I'm glad they did it.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally the Midnight Wind howls..., February 10, 2010

By 

Thomas W. Earl (New York) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Midnight Wind Plus (Audio CD)

This is one of my favorite Charlie Daniels album and it took too long to release it on CD. Funny thing is I emailed Charlie about two years ago about releasing it to which he said that EPIC had the rights to it and that I should contact them. Well I tried. They would not answer any email requests. Finally someone woke up. If you do not have this in your Charlie Daniels collection you must add this one. Everything about it is great including the extra tracks they have added from some past Volunteer Jam show. Trust me. Enjoy

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Music Biz is full of Injustices..., November 22, 2010

By 

Jeffrey A. Hopson (Garland, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Midnight Wind Plus (Audio CD)

...and the fact that this album by The Charlie Daniels band at their peak had never been released on CD until now (besides the recent Epic Trilogy Vol II, which included Midnight Wind, Million Mile Reflections, and Full Moon on 2 discs and is out of print now) is a major indicator of the fact. It goes farther, though: This album contained songs that should have been radio hits yet it got virtually no airplay in the country OR the rock formats. The title track, Midnight Wind, Heaven Can be Anywhere, Indian Man, and the incredible Maria Teresa were all Country Radio material, but Country radio was emersed in Crystal Gayle, Janie Fricke, and all the pre-Urban Cowboy schlock to give any credibility to an authentic band like Charlie and the boys.

Midnight Wind was the last album recorded by the classic (but not original) line-up of Daniels, Tommy Crain, Charlie Hayward, Joel "Taz" DiGregorio, Fred Edwards, and Don Murray. This line-up first appeared on the excellent '75 release 'Nightrider' and was intact for 'Saddle Tramp' (early'76), 'High Lonesome' (late '76), and Midnight Wind ('77). Murray (one of the two drummers) would leave thereafter, replaced by Jim Marshall, who would also leave after the '82 "Windows" release, at which point the CDB decided to abandon the two-drummer configuration, leaving only Fred Edwards (who had been with Charlie and Taz long before the "Fire On The Mountain" '74 release). Edwards would later leave, as would Tommy Crain, leaving presently only Charlie Hayward and Taz DiGregorio as Daniels's only 70's era bandmates. Gone now is that magnificent Southern Rock authenticity, which is why you need to do yourself a favor and experience this greatest of Southern bands in their prime, remastered and available for the first time ever as its own individual release, with three live tracks as a bonus from the Volunteer Jam III & IV album, thanks to Australia's "Raven" label.

The title song 'Midnight Wind' is another great epic story song about shady drifters and the innocent girls who love them, 'Maria Teresa' is that Mexican beauty that waits patiently and faithfully for her cowboy to return to Mexico for her and should be a hit and as festive a standard as 'The South's Gonna Do it Again'. 'The Grapes of Wrath' is as epic as the Steinbeck novel in its story of poor migrators to the west during the dust bowl years and the vengeance of a poor man who gets even with the wealthy aristocrat who raped his wife. 'Indian Man' is a great and solemn tribute to the plight and strength of the Native American, 'Black Bayou' and 'Good Ol' Boy, and 'Redneck Fiddlin' Man' are raucous barnstormers about hell-raising down south! Buy this and enjoy the scent of magnolia, pine trees, and the heat of illegal liquor as hot-rodded cars roar in the distance and nightbirds cross a full moon while a barn dance rages full tilt somewhere in the rural southern backwoods...I promise you'll be glad you did.