Soap Box

It�s amazing to me that on October 24, four days before my 81st birthday, my biography, my memoir, �Never Look at The Empty Seats,� will be released.

I guess the reason it�s amazing, is that I have lived with it and worked on it for over twenty years, padding, culling, adding subtracting, editing, rewriting, polishing and refining, trying to make the story as concise and entertaining as I could, and as you may guess, looking back over 80 years, something would fire another synapse and trigger another memory and I�d be off and running again, chasing down wispy remembrances of some long ago happening that might be of interest to the readers.

I tried to go back to my very earliest thoughts and sift through the bits and pieces, sometimes a few words or maybe just a color remembered could bring back a cogent scenario of the time when the whole world was pristine and first-time experiences were great adventures.

I remembered and relived it all, the time when the reality of the outside world found its way into my cloistered young life when Pearl Harbor was bombed and, even at the age of five years old, I knew that something serious and profound had taken place and would change the very fabric and focus of life in America for years to come.

I recalled young men going off to war, the casualty lists coming over the radio, the Gold Stars in the windows and the �we�re all in this together� feeling that even affected those of us who were still in short pants and single digits.

The topsy turvy of my early school years when I would attend three different schools during one grade more than one time and finally settling in Chatham County and finishing high school in a class of 22 graduates.

I wrote about my early love for music and the fantasies I had about being on a stage in some bright costume, and when I learned my first three chords on Russell Palmer�s old Stella guitar and how thrilling it was to be able to play a whole song.

My early efforts learning to play a fiddle which a classmate of mine said sounded as if somebody had stepped on a cat.

My hard-fought entrance into the world of the professional musician, the thing I had wanted to be ever since I had learned those first three chords, chasing the dream and at times running from reality.

The wild and undisciplined period of my life and the hard decisions I had to make and the sobering actions I had to take to pull myself out and get back on the path I wanted with all my heart to pursue.

The night I met the girl of my dreams in Tulsa and tied a knot that is still tight and solid fifty years after the fact.

When our only son was born and the incredible joy he continues to bring into our lives.

The 1967 move to Nashville and my rockbound determination to stay there and become a part of the Music City.

The early records, the thrill of our first gold and subsequently platinum albums.

The advent of the Volunteer Jam.

The trips to Iraq and Afghanistan to entertain our men and women in uniform and my sincere and lifelong admiration and undying gratitude to those who have served.

A lifelong dream realized when I was invited to join the Grand Ole Opry.

Yes, I had a story stretching out over eight decades, but I was, and am still chasing my dream and exciting things kept happening and I just didn�t have a stopping place.

That is until one night when Sarah Trahern, president of the Country Music Association informed me that I was being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

I thought that would be a great place to end it, so �Never Look at the Empty Seats� is the story of my life from my earliest memories until one of the greatest nights of my life when they hung my plaque on the wall of the Country Music Hall of Fame alongside so many of my lifelong heroes.

While there is no yellow brick road, chart or GPS setting for finding your way around in the music world, there are some absolutes to recognize, some pitfalls to avoid and some hopefully sage advice to those young people with a song in their heart and a fire in their bellies who would be considering setting out on the path I chose long ago.

And the music, from my first fumbling, trite attempts to the sweet satisfaction of hearing one of my songs on the radio,

It�s been a wild and wonderful ride and I hope that those of you who choose to read about it will enjoy reading about, my music, my faith, my ups, downs and sideways, my knock downs and rising ups and the personal side of my life you probably didn�t even know about.

Looking forward to sharing it with you.

What do you think?

Pray for our troops, our police and the peace of Jerusalem 

God Bless America

� Charlie Daniels

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