The Ultimate Charlie Daniels Band

Charlie Daniels Band | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 21, 2002)
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B000066AUU
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #142,219 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 1974 was a water-shed moment..., May 13, 2007

By 

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

This review is from: The Ultimate Charlie Daniels Band (Audio CD)

When the '72 hit "Uneasy Rider" hit the radio airwaves, few people knew that the big, fiddle-playing, cowboy from Wilmington, NC (and later moved to Mt. Juliet, TN) was the session musician that played the guitar intro to Bobby Bare's "Detroit City", or that he was the session guitarist on Bob Dylan's "Nashville Skyline" album. Yes...just before Bobby Bare's legendary vocal lines become audible in one of his biggest hits there was that unknown Nashville sessions guitarist named Charlie Daniels doing that now signature guitar intro to the big radio hit, "Detroit City". Later he would record his own lps under his own name, Capitol Record's eponymous "Charlie Daniels", Kama Sutra's "TE John, Grease, and Wolfman", "Honey in the Rock (which yielded "Uneasy Rider"), and the breakthrough "Whiskey", to such Southern Rock staples as "Fire on the Mountain", "Nightrider", to Epic's "Saddle Tramp", "High Lonesome", "Midnight Wind", "Million Mile Reflections", "Full Moon", "Windows", and "Me & the Boys", and then others as the late 80's gave way to change that would forever alter the face of what we lovingly came to know as "Southern Rock".
The Charlie Daniels Band, for this intent and purpose, was legitimately comprised of dual drummers Fred Edwards and Don Murray, bass player Charlie Hayward, key-boardist/pianist/vocalist Joel "Taz" DiGregorio, guitarist/vocalist Tommy Crain, and then the big man himself, Charlie Daniels, on guitar, fiddle, and lead vocalist/band leader par excellance.

Southern Rock is attributed as being a product of the work of The Allman Bros. Band, beginning in 1969 and continuing until the deaths of Duane Allman and Berry Oakley a year later, but when Southern Rock became a genre recognised by the American mainstream by 1974, it was the big, cowboy hat-wearing, fiddle-playing Mt. Juliet, Tennessean who championed the cause - and he was more than willing to share the spot-light, giving due credit in his songs to such little known acts (in 1974 anyway) as Wet Willie, Barefoot Jerry, The Marshall Tucker Band, calling Richard Betts (Allman Bros. legendary guitarist) by name and referencing the red Gibson ES-335 guitar Betts played early on, and of course there's the opening line "The train at Grinderswitch is running right on time" which references Dru Lombar's band "Grinderswitch" (which,incidentally, is the town Grand Ol' Opry Star Minnie Pearl hailed from), and "people down in Florida can't be still when ol' Lynyrd Skynyrd's pickin' down in Jacksonville".
If you're a fan of this music, this is a fantastic place to start as it covers the high spots and finer moments of the career of one of Ol' Mother Dixie's proudest sons, Charlie Daniels and the band.
It's such a shame that "High Lonesome", "Midnight Wind", and some others in the CDB catalogue, are out of print because those titles contain some of the brightest moments in CDB history.
Check out this collection and search out any other Charlie Daniels product you can find if you want a real taste of what Southern Rock was really all about. Hippies were wearing cowboy hats, cowboy boots, and turning on to Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings. "Billy the Kid", "Damn Good Cowboy", "Texas", "Caballo Diablo", "Midnight Wind", "Birmingham Blues", "Saddle Tramp", Tommy Crain's fantastic "Cumberland Mtn. #9" and "Lonesome Boy From Dixie", and Taz's "New York City Kingsize Rosewood Bed" are the stuff Southern music was made of..."Ain't it good to be alive and be in Tennessee?" Yeah...I was born and raised in the Volunteer State and I have to agree...it certainly WAS good in those days.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mandatory for CDB Fans!, July 9, 2002

By 

Kelly K. Dunn "quadzero" (the Heartland of the United States of America) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Ultimate Charlie Daniels Band (Audio CD)

This CD set should be mandatory for anyone who considers himself as true CDB aficionado. I came across this CD and bought it. I am glad that I did! I had forgotten just how much I loved Charlie Daniel's music. This set contains the great ones I use to listen to: "Uneasy Rider", "The South's Gonna Do It Again", "Trudy", Long Haired Country Boy", "High Lonesome" just to name a few, and several new ones (for me at least) that I love just as much if not even more: "Carolina (I Remember You)", "Still In Saigon", "American Farmer", "Midnight Train", "Talk To Me Fiddle"... just to name a few of these newer ones.
I was a real fan of CDB, Marshall Tucker Band, Pure Prairie League back in the day. I am defiantly going to show my grown boys what real Southern Rock n' Roll really is... Great music for the American soul!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE ULTIMATE CHARLIE DANIELS BAND ! (it definitely lives up to it's name), October 5, 2007

By 

ol' nuff n' den sum (the Virginia coast, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Ultimate Charlie Daniels Band (Audio CD)

Wilmington, North Carolina native and country/southern rock guitarist/singer/fiddler Charlie Daniels has been in the music business a long time. He's played on albums by Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, and many others. But Charlie is most famous for his extraordinary ability to play the fiddle (that's a violin to some of you). He's also written quite a few great classic southern rock songs, too, and most of those songs are right here on The Ultimate Charlie Daniels Band, a 2-disc set of his best songs. All the biggies are here, including his first hit, Uneasy Rider, the hilarious cross-country saga of a country-boy hippie, who has to out-smart several hostile rednecks to save his skin. Long Haired Country Boy, The South's Gonna Do It Again, and The Devil Went Down To Georgia are all rock classics that highlight the country/southern rock sounds of this very talented musician and his competent band. Saddle Tramp and High Lonesome show off the jazz side of the CDB with cool, sleek extended jams. There are some surprises here, too. They do a great version of Eric Clapton's Layla (no kidding). Also here is the rocking tale of a troubled Vietnam vet, Still In Saigon, that gets quite emotional. The CDB also comment on drug addiction with Funky Junky. In (What This World Needs Is) A Few More Rednecks, Charlie sings:

Now they're trying to take my guns away
And that would be just fine
If you take 'em away from the criminals first
I'll gladly give ya mine.

Give 'em hell, Charlie!