Here in the Volunteer State, lots of Tennesseans are grieving the loss of a crucial figure in the history of that unique brand of Southern rock that gave American the Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Marshall Tucker Band and lots of other fiery folks.
Charlie Daniels mixed rock, blues, country, bluegrass, folk, Texas swing, gospel and every other stream of music that flows through Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville and everywhere else in the Cumberland and Great Smoky Mountains. You heard his music in bars and you also heard it revival meetings in evangelical and Pentecostal churches.
At a crucial moment in music history, Daniels was Bob Dylan’s favorite Nashville guitar player. He also was known to do at bit of testifying at Billy Graham crusades. In a way, those two facts don’t clash all that much. President Jimmy Carter was a fan, too.
As you would expect, this music legend’s sudden death — his final tweets gave no hint of the stroke and collapse to come — received quite a bit of attention in The Nashville Tennessean and the other Gannett newspapers that dominate this state. Here’s the headline on the main Tennessean story: “Charlie Daniels, 'Devil Went Down to Georgia' singer, famed fiddler and outspoken star, dies at 83.”
In social media, the tributes to Daniels — by music stars and ordinary fans — almost all stress his Christian faith. You can see that in this collection of tweets that were part of the online Tennessean package.
But if you dig a bit deeper into the comments on these tributes, it’s easy to see that quite a few other people hated Daniels because of his conservative Christian convictions.
Consider, for example, the hurricane of hate and bile running through many of the comments following the typically sweet tribute tweets that came from Dolly Parton. (Make sure you read her second tweet and the comments connected to it.)
I would argue that it’s impossible to understand the “outspoken” side of this man’s life — that word shows up over and over in coverage of his death — without understanding his faith.
So what made it into the main Tennessean obit?
I’m sad to say that his convictions were boiled down to politics — period.
I know that is par for the course in Donald Trump-era journalism, but readers down here in Tennessee are going to know that key elements of this story are missing. That will only hurt how lots of people view journalism, in this neck of the woods. Here is a key chunk of the obit:
… Daniels undoubtedly had many other passions. A staunch supporter of U.S. troops and veterans, he spent much of his career traveling overseas to play for service members in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan.
In 2014, he co-founded the Journey Home Project, a non-profit that has now raised more than $1 million for veterans and veterans-related programs and charities. The following year saw the opening of the Charlie and Hazel Daniels Veterans and Military Family Center at Middle Tennessee State University.
For the last four years, hardly a day went by without Daniels sharing this message on his Twitter account: “22 VETERANS COMMIT SUICIDE EVERY DAY!!”
On the platform, the man who sang 1980's confrontational "In America" solidified his reputation as one of the most outspoken figures in country music. In daily posts, he would decry abortion as “murder,” ask fans to “pray for the blue,” and declare that “Benghazi ain’t going away.”
“We’re sitting on the upstairs porch looking at the northern horizon and watching America light up, fireworks going off all over the place,” he tweeted on July 4. “You may tear down statues and burn buildings but you can’t kill the spirit of patriots and when they’ve had enough this madness will end.”
Yes, those themes could be found among the final tweets from Daniels.
Then again, he sent out many with content like this one from July 5th:
It’s revealing to search through this lengthy Tennessean feature for some key words.
“Church” shows up, since that was one of the places where the young Daniels emerged as a musician. But if readers are looking for “Christian,” “Jesus,” “Bible” or even “faith” they will need to look elsewhere.
Once again, politics is “real.” Faith? Not so much.
I thought it was interesting that the material about Daniels’ convictions on social issues and politics (those are treated as one and the same, you see) was followed by another reference to his Dylan connection.
But in his twilight years, Daniels also continued to relate to the counter-cultural heroes he once played with. In 2014, he covered “The Times They Are a-Changin,” “Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall” and others on a full album of acoustic Dylan covers.
"All these things, they're just all part of my life," he told The Tennessean in 2014. "It all adds up. And whatever differences you may have, there are 12 notes of music in the world where you can find common ground."
Yes, indeed.
In this case, it’s hard to understand this man’s life without exploring his faith, as well as his politics. I mean, check out the headline on the faith-free New York Times obituary. (Click here for the Associated Press obit, since it is a little bit better in terms of tribute quotes and song lyrics.)
On a brighter note, let’s end with some music.
As you would expect, there is the Devil:
But there is another side to that eternal drama — including this very Southern vision of heaven.
Oh, and it appears that this was the final Daniels tweet: