Daniels’ band in top-notch form
by Steve Webb, The Knickerbocker News, September 5, 1981
To clearly assess the Charlie Daniels Band’s Friday concert in the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, it makes sense to go back to Daniels’ first show there in 1978.
That first show was an endearing one for fans of Southern-style country rock, featuring loads of flashy guitar work and bumpy playing. But endearing as the band was, its ideas far outran its execution, both from sloppy sound engineering and a somewhat unrealized performance.
Since that time, Daniels has honed his band into one of the most professional performing units in America. He spurns the label “country rock” although the music certainly swings simultaneously in country and rock’n’roll directions. He put together two exceptional albums in “Million Mile Reflections” and “Full Moon,” with singles that ranked as more important staples of their respective Top 40s than his previous hits did.
Daniels owned SPAC Friday night, not just because he is a perennial drawing card or because he was being broadcast by stereo cable television to potentially 2 million homes across the country. It was a situation where the 13,000 who attended, down from the two previous years without the benefit of a new album, doted on nearly every song he played. He offered up four new songs that each seemed to get careful listening.
There were some slight problems, of course. Although the instrumental mix was crystal-like from the two-hour set’s beginning, the vocals were muddy for a while. The intricate horror story in “Legend of Woolley Swamp” was lost for those who might not have heard it before, as that song was the fourth of 25 in the concert. And a song that followed it, the elegy to Elvis Presley, Janis Joplin and Ronnie Van Zant called “Reflections,” would have made little sense had it not been accompanied with a backdrop mural from “rock’n’roll heaven” — featuring those three performers, Duane Allman, Tommy Caldwell and Ron “Pigpen” McKernan.
But the vocals cleared up by the first new song, an untitled tune about not making it in the music business. Daniels dedicated it “to everyone that’s ever left home searching for a dream and ended up playing music in a beer joint,” and it was an effective reflection of all those musicians who didn’t quite get there. Another new song, “Lady in Red,” featured some of the best vocals keyboardist Taz DiGregorio has done.
The band played three pieces by other artists: Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama,” the Marshall Tucker Band’s “Can’t You See,” and Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.” Although none of them departed heavily from the original version, each contained such a heavy piece of Charlie Daniels in it that it was a new song.
The regular portion of the show ended with a string of six hits. Of these, “Cumberland Mountain Number Nine” was the most stirring, for its lengthy guitar solo by Tommy Crain and the harmonies by him, Daniels, and DiGregorio. “The Devil Went Down to Georgia, ” Daniels’ first No. 1 hit and a fine adaptation of an oral poem by Steven Vincent Benet, still sounds as fresh as when the band first played it in the Capital District.
Three encores followed, and they were highlighted by a hymn medley further extending the band’s definition as American Music.
The surprise about the crowd size, to these eyes, was that Juice Newton didn’t draw the extra people in. Perhaps this is because the public assumes an opening act will only get a smattering of stage time.
Ms. Newton, who has managed two No. 1 hits this year, ended up playing almost an hour. Although I hadn’t been impressed by her records, the live set was quite enjoyable. She has a fine voice, and with more lively backing than on vinyl, she comes across well.
She obviously learned country music from Top 40 radio, mixing such pieces as “Hey Baby” and “Running Bear” with Hank Williams Jr.’s “Women I’ve Never Had,” adapted to men for her part in a duet. She is basically a pop singer in a country mold, whereas Dolly Parton is vice versa. This was most blatantly obvious when the instrumental section of one song included quoted riffs from “My Sharona” and “Purple Haze.”
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