Charlie Daniels is partly Western and partly Southern. His signature “bull rider” hat and belt buckle, his lifestyle on Twin Pines Ranch (a boyhood dream come true), his love of horses, cowboy lore and the heroes of championship rodeo, Western movies, and Louis L’Amour novels, identify him as a Westerner. The son of a lumberjack and a Southerner by birth, his music - rock, country, bluegrass, blues, gospel — is quintessentially Southern.

It hasn’t been so much a style of music, but more the values consistently reflected in several styles that have connected Charlie Daniels with millions of fans. For decades, he has steadfastly refused to label his music as anything other than “CDB music,” music that has been popularized on a variety of radio formats. Like so many great American success stories, the Charlie Daniels saga begins in rural obscurity. Born in 1936 in Wilmington, North Carolina, he was raised on a musical diet that included Pentecostal gospel, local bluegrass bands, and the rhythm & blues and country music emanating respectively from Nashville’s 50,000-watt mega broadcasters WLAC and WSM.