Like the State of Texas, Charlie Daniels is partly Western and partly Southern. His signature "bullrider" hat and belt buckle, his lifestyle on the 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. In fact, even his bent for all things Western is Southern, because his attire, his lifestyle and his interests are historically emblematic of Southern working class solidarity with the "lone cowboy" individualism of the American West.
With an unerring instinct for the universal ties that bind people together and an equal abhorrence for the intolerance and fear that do the opposite, Charlie Daniels has kept the specifics of his cultural heritage as the soul of the CDB music that has impacted the lives of everyday people everywhere.
"It's purely American music with something for everyone," he said. "At least that's what I've hoped for in my 40-plus years in music."
