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Charles Edward Daniels (October 28, 1936 – July 6, 2020) was an American singer, musician, and songwriter. His music fused rock, country, blues and jazz, and was a pioneering contribution to Southern rock and outlaw country. He was best known for his number-one country hit "The Devil Went Down to Georgia". Much of his output, including all but one of his eight Billboard Hot 100 charting singles, was credited to the Charlie Daniels Band.

Daniels was active as a singer and musician from the 1950s until his death. He was inducted into the Cheyenne Frontier Days Hall of Fame in 2002, the Grand Ole Opry in 2008, the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2009, and the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2016.

Charles Edward Daniels was born October 28, 1936, in Wilmington, North Carolina, to teenage parents William and LaRue Daniel. The "s" in Daniels' name was added by mistake when his birth certificate was filled out. Two weeks after Daniels had begun to attend elementary school, his family moved to Valdosta, Georgia, commuting between Valdosta and Elizabethtown, North Carolina, before moving back to Wilmington. After enduring measles, Daniels would require glasses to see for most of his life afterward, which led to him being bullied by other children at his school. Influenced by Pentecostal gospel, local bluegrass music groups and rhythm and blues artists that he heard on the radio, as well as Western films, Daniels began writing and performing songs.

Daniels began his music career as a member of the bluegrass band Misty Mountain Boys in the 1950s, already skilled on guitar, fiddle, banjo, and mandolin, In the 1960s, Daniels was performing rock and roll. Daniels formed his own band, the Rockets, who later changed their name to the Jaguars after scoring a hit single with the instrumental recording "Jaguar". After discovering jazz, the Jaguars began performing jazz music, before reverting to rock and country music by 1964. During his career as a rock and roll sideman, Daniels also wrote songs for other performers. In July 1963, soul singer Jerry Jackson recorded Daniels' song "It Hurts Me"; the following year, on January 12, 1964, Elvis Presley recorded the better known recording of Daniels' song. The songwriting credits list Charles E. Daniels and Joy Byers as the songwriters, although Byers' husband, songwriter and producer Bob Johnston, was the actual co-writer with Daniels. Johnston encouraged Daniels to move to Nashville in order to get work as a session player, which led to Daniels recording with Bob Dylan on his 1969 album Nashville Skyline, Ringo Starr on his 1970 album Beaucoups of Blues and Leonard Cohen on his 1971 album Songs of Love and Hate, as well as further sessions with Dylan and Cohen's 1971 tour. Dylan and Daniels found each other creatively invigorating during their recordings together, with Dylan saying that "when Charlie was around, something good would usually come out of the sessions", and Daniels describing the recording sessions with Dylan as "loose, free and, most of all, fun". Daniels also produced albums for the Youngbloods, including their 1969 album Elephant Mountain.

Daniels released his self-titled debut album in 1970, which helped lay the foundations for Southern rock. Two years later, Daniels formed the Charlie Daniels Band. Daniels scored a Top 10 hit on the Billboard Pop charts with "Uneasy Rider", a talking bluegrass song, in 1973. The following year, Daniels organized the first Volunteer Jam concert. The same year, the Charlie Daniels Band released the gold selling Fire on the Mountain, followed by the even more successful Nightrider, whose success was spurred by the Top 40 hit single "Texas". Saddle Tramp was also a gold seller, and was the first release by the band to reach the top 10 of the Billboard Country charts.

In 1975 he played fiddle on Hank Williams Jr's breakthrough studio album Hank Williams Jr. and Friends on the songs "Losin You" originally by The Marshall Tucker Band and "Stoned At The Jukebox". He would also later provide a fiddle solo to the bridge of Williams Jr's later song Family Tradition from his 1979 studio album of the same name.

In 1979, the Charlie Daniels Band released their most commercially successful album, Million Mile Reflections, which reached number five and was certified triple-platinum. It featured the single "The Devil Went Down to Georgia", which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in September 1979, and won Daniels the Grammy Award for Best Country Vocal Performance. The band also attracted a high-profile fan in President Jimmy Carter, who used Daniels' song "The South's Gonna Do It Again" as his campaign theme, After Carter's win, the band performed at his 1977 inauguration. In 1980, Daniels played himself in the film Urban Cowboy, starring John Travolta, and as a result became closely identified with the revival of country music generated by the film's success. Subsequently, the combination of the success of the more country-oriented song and the decline in popularity of Southern rock led Daniels to shift focus in his sound from rock to country music. After the platinum certified Full Moon (1980) and the gold certified Windows (1982), Daniels would not have another hit album until the 1989 release Simple Man, which earned Daniels another gold album, although the title track sparked controversy, as it was interpreted by some as advocating vigilantism,[19] due to lyrics such as "Just take them rascals [rapists, killers, child abusers] out in the swamp/Put 'em on their knees and tie 'em to a stump/Let the rattlers and the bugs and the alligators do the rest", which garnered Daniels considerable media attention and talk show visits.