Charlie Daniels‘ final TV interview occurred just a few weeks ago, for an upcoming episode of FOX Nation’s The Pursuit! With John Rich. In the interview, scheduled to air on Friday, July 10, Charlie recalled his humble beginnings in music, never imagining how far his talent would take him.
“I remember the first songs, two songs I ever learned was ‘You Are My Sunshine’ and ‘Kneel at the Cross,’ which is an old hymn,” Charlie recalled. “I had music in my life. My dad didn’t play an instrument, but he dearly loved music and we were constantly listening to the radio. And I used to sing with my dad. He taught me how to sing harmony. We’d ride along in his car, and he’d sing old songs.”
Charlie was a teenager before he picked up an instrument, but as soon as he did, he knew he had found his calling.
“I actually was about 15 years old before I actually played an instrument,” Charlie shared. “I’d always wanted to. And I was living in a little town in North Carolina, and this friend of mine I had known for several years, I went up to his house one day, and he had this old Stella guitar out. I mean one of these old beat up … I bet the strings had never been changed on it. I don’t know if he even knew where he got it at. It was just at his house. The strings were rusty and all.
The friend showed Charlie the few basic guitar chords he knew, and he instantly fell in love with it.
“My fingers, my gosh, they’d get sore, but you got to keep on playing, you know,” he recounted. “And that was my first take when I first started playing guitar, first started playing music. I was about 15 years old I guess.”
Charlie also opened up about his faith in the interview, which he said has sustained him throughout his life, including with the current coronavirus pandemic.
“If I didn’t have the Lord in my life, I don’t know where I’d be,” Charlie acknowledged. “I really don’t know where I’d be. And there’s been times in my life when I did not have the Lord in my life, and bad things would happen. You don’t know where to go, you don’t know what to do. But I learned what my motto nowadays is, we try to walk by faith and not by sight. Because right now, with all the stuff that’s going on around us, especially in our business – you know, we’re probably going to be the last business to open, because we’ve got to put people together.
“You’ve got to stop and think, if you look around you, everything just looks bad 360 degrees,” he continued. “But if you look at it and say, my God’s bigger than this, my God controls this thing … This is the first time in my life I’ve ever seen anything happen that happened all over the world. I mean, the rich people couldn’t get out of here and go to the Riviera and get away from it. There’s no place to go. So what does that tell you? Who are you going to depend on?”
Charlie passed away on Monday, July 6, after suffering a stroke. His funeral will take place on Friday, July 10, at World Outreach Church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.