Soap Box

The first day of Summer finds me, as so many others have through the years, traveling the highways of this great nation, going places and seeing things I've seen many times over as I visit city and village, megatropolis and small town, interstate highway and two land prairie blacktop following the profession God has blessed me with pursuing for over half a century.

No matter how many times I see the Rocky Mountains, the teeming streets of the Eastern seaboard cities, the barren Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah or the wonder of Lakeshore Drive on a clear Chicago night, I never tire of it.

No matter how many times I perform "The Devil Went Down To Georgia", "Long Haired Country Boy" or any of the other CDB mainstays I've played thousands of times, it's never routine or boring but fresh and exciting and another opportunity to do it better tonight than I did last night.

I've traversed every inch of Interstate 40, Interstate 80 and almost all of the rest of the superhighways that crisscross this nation, I've run Alligator Alley, Old 66, the Rebel Route, Sunset Boulevard and Tater Peeler Road and what's around the next bend in the road never loses its fascination, its appeal, its hold over my imagination.

There's always a wondrous sight waiting somewhere down that highway, a herd of wild horses in Nevada, a double rainbow across the Rockies, a Montana night with so many stars it takes your breath away, a big elk standing on the side of a hill, his breath snorting fog through his nostrils on an early winter morning, looking across the river from the Jersey side at the majesty of the New York City skyline.

I figure I have traveled somewhere between three and four million miles in the pursuit of the profession I love so very much, and God willing, I will log up many more before I hang up my bow.

I love waking up in the parking lot of a different motel every morning and pulling back the curtains on the bus to see where we are.

The kind of life I live is not for everybody, I've seen some strong people come apart on the road, I guess the pressure, the hustle and the ever changing landscape is just too much for some people to handle, but, as for me, I wouldn't trade places with anybody on planet earth and thank God that I can make a living doing exactly what I want to do, doing it with people I love and respect and at 76-years-old still a viable part of the music business.

The mistake a lot of especially young people who want to be professional musicians make, they think life on the road is a non-stop rolling party. Nothing could be further from the truth and those who come on the road with that attitude either reform their thinking, or find themselves back playing weekends in their local Holliday Inn lounge.

Life on the road is a serious undertaking and the music business can be an unsympathetic and demanding taskmaster, with no tolerance for pouting or thinking what might have been, no patience for those who spend themselves burning the midnight oil to the detriment of their ability to do their job.

But to one who respects it, loves it and is willing to give it their all, it can be a rewarding, exciting life that never gets old or mundane or monotonous.

It's a wonderful way of life for those who make the commitment, for those who love and respect it.

So again this summer, this old man will get on this old bus and travel down these same old highways and feel that same old excitement.

Bring it on!

What do you think?

Pray for our troops and the peace of Jerusalem.

God Bless America

Charlie Daniels​