Charlie Daniels sat down for his final TV interview in an upcoming episode of FOX Nation‘s The Pursuit! with John Rich, where they discussed Charlie’s life and career, from his humble beginnings to his numerous successes. They also discussed the current coronavirus global pandemic, which Charlie said was making him lean on his faith more than ever before.
“If I didn’t have the Lord in my life, I don’t know where I’d be,” Charlie told John. “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 had more successes than most artists, but it was the simple things that he derived the most joy from, more than the awards and accolades.
“There are so many things I enjoy,” Charlie reflected. “I enjoy eating, you can probably tell that. I enjoy a good glass of wine. I enjoy hunting. I don’t get the chance to do it anymore, but I love my guns. I love fishing. I love being able to, if I decide today, let’s go down to the lake where I can catch some crappie, you get in the car and go. Or, let’s fly to Australia. Get your passport. Let’s go somewhere, let’s do something. Nobody stopped me. A lot of places you couldn’t do that. You couldn’t go out of the town you’re in; you couldn’t go out of the state you’re in.”
In his latter years, Charlie became outspoken about the two things that shaped his life: being an American and his Christian faith.
“Pursuit of happiness — freedom and pursuit of happiness go hand in hand together,” Charlie acknowledged. “Freedom to worship any way you want to. Freedom to go anywhere you want to, do anything you want to, to say anything you want to. Right, wrong, indifferent, whatever. People don’t have to listen to you, but you’ve got a right to say it.
“That’s the pursuit of happiness,” he concluded. “Being the person to reach your potential and be the person that God designed you that you could reach your potential to be. That, to me, is the pursuit of happiness. God, family, country, work. That’s my four principles.”
Charlie was 83 years old when passed away on Monday, July 6, after suffering a hemorrhagic stroke. The funeral will take place on Friday, July 10, at World Outreach Church in Murfreesboro. Vince Gill, Trace Adkins, Travis Tritt and Gretchen Wilson are among the performers. The service will begin at 11:00 AM.