(CelebrityAccess MediaWire) —
Charlie Daniels will be honored as a BMI Icon at the performing rights organization’s 53rd annual Country Awards. The gala ceremony and dinner, which salutes the most performed country songs of the past year, will be held October 18 at BMI’s Music Row offices.
Daniels, whose hits include the Grammy Award-winning Southern rock classic “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” will be honored for his “enduring influence on generations of music makers.” He joins a distinguished list of BMI Icons that includes Loretta Lynn, Bill Anderson, Dolly Parton, Brian Wilson, Carlos Santana, Paul Simon, James Brown, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, Isaac Hayes, Al Green, Van Morrison, Holland-Dozier-Holland and Charlie Wilson and The GAP Band.
Skilled on guitar, fiddle and mandolin, the Wilmington, the North Carolina-native moved to Nashville in 1969 to find work as a session guitarist. He contributed to recording sessions for artists as diverse as Bob Dylan, Al Kooper, Flatt & Scruggs, Ringo Starr, and Marty Robbins. Some of his many hits as a recording artist include “Uneasy Rider,” “Long Haired Country Boy” and “The South’s Gonna Do It Again,” which won a BMI Country Award in 1976.
His signature song, “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” which has more than three million broadcast performances, earned Daniels a BMI Pop Award in 1979 and a BMI Country Award in 1980. Other BMI Country Award winning songs in Daniels’ catalog include “Wichita Jail” (1977), “Mississippi” (1980), “Drinkin’ My Baby Goodbye” (1987) and “In America” (1981), which also earned a Pop Award in 1980. –Bob Grossweiner and Jane Cohen
