We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago…..
By 1971 he already had a long career in the music biz. After growing up in North Carolina Charlie Daniels headed to Nashville where he became a fixture in the studio playing on all kinds of records including the three LPs that Dylan cut in Music City. He played on Leonard Cohen albums and wrote the song “It Hurts Me” that was recorded by Elvis.
In 1971 he and some of his studio buddies cut his first record. The self-titled debut was a mixed bag. His signing voice is still rough and he hasn’t honed if for the material like he would later in the decade. The album has a southern theme of course and ranges from rockers like ‘Thirty Nine Miles To Mobile’ with some stinging guitar to a tune like “Ain’t No Way”, an obvious pre-cursor to the “southern rock” genre that he would champion a few years later.
It is Nashville so he also brings the country…like the piano drenched country-blues of “Trudy” and a ballad like “Long, Long Way From Home” Old pro Ben Keith supplies some nice slide guitar on “Don’t Let Your Man Find Out”
But the weirdest song on the record is “The Pope & The Dope”. Pre-dating his hippie anthem “Uneasy Rider by a couple of years…this one is way out there…name dropping lots of politicians and organizations of the day. Daniels politics went hard right in his later years but in 1971 he was more flexible.
Anyway, here are the lyrics to “The Pope & The Dope” so you can follow along…and if you don’t remember who they all are…that’s what Wikipedia is for.
The Catholics ain’t allowed to smoke no dope,
If they couldn’t get high would they feel real low,
And Would they get pissed off down in Mexico,
The Oh Calcutta cast had to wear clothes,
Would they still come all the way from Kokomo,
Just to dig the show,
For the Black Panther Party of
America to be merged with the Ku Klux Klan,
The new ambassador to Timbuktu,
If he was to do it well, do you guess
It’d improve his relationship with CBS,
That the black population of Georgia had to be moved into Arkansas,
Aww Would it make Orval Faubus sore and start a 2 state civil war,
And Would they ask the government for
Federal aid to buy pickaxe handles and razorblades
Now if Martha Mitchell was to address
A special meeting of the SDS,
If she told them her views on Vietnam,
Would they make her an honorary minuteman,
And run for President in 72,
Could he carry all of the Southern states,
With Julian Bond for a running mate,
Found out that J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI owned stock in AT&T,
And the UAW, and the BNO, and the AFL and CIO, and the ICC,
And the BVDs, and the LSU and UCLA, and the OEO,
And the KKK, and the PTA and the L&N, and the UPI and IBM, aww BS!
This album certainly isn’t as polished as some of his stuff from later in the decade but it’s a start. I didn’t agree with the man’s politics later in life…but he sure could play
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