Never Look at the Empty Seats

by Charlie Daniels

  In 1979 our family moved into a two-story log house at the top of a hill on Twin Pines Ranch. While nothing fancy, it was the homey sort of place that suited our family’s taste. With a big stone fireplace and a screened-in upstairs porch with a good view of the big pond at the bottom of the hill and a patch of woods on each side, it was our dream house, and still is.

  I love my professional life. I love entertaining and touring, being around people, and all the other facets that make up the life of a professional traveling musician. But my private life begins when I turn off the little two-lane road that runs past the entrance to Twin Pines Ranch.

  That’s the line of demarcation between Charlie Daniels public figure and Charlie Daniels private citizen.

  I have tried to surround my family and myself with the things we enjoy. Over the years we have been blessed with many desires of our hearts. Due to the fact that the area we built in was basically undeveloped when we moved there, the land surrounding us was cheap. We bought several small tracts until Twin Pines Ranch was a little more than four hundred acres, with several ponds, a lighted roping arena, a swimming pool, a tennis court, a putting green, and a small shooting range where I’ll sometimes pop off several hundred rounds in a day’s time.

  We live in a simple two-story split-log house with four porches and a swimming pool. The interior is decorated in a hodgepodge of my Western art and Hazel’s antiques. We don’t try to impress anybody but ourselves in the way we decorate our house. We just try to surround ourselves with the things that are pleasing to our eyes and would probably run an interior decorator slam up the wall, and we couldn’t care less.

  Our house is meant to be lived in, not impress, and we live in every inch of it. In the wintertime I crank up the fireplace and kick back. I keep a guitar and fiddle on stands beside my favorite chair. The table next to it is usually covered with the remnants of whatever project I’m working on—sheets of paper, computers, guitar picks, and other bits and pieces of my sloppy creative process.

  There’s a chair in the kitchen that Hazel calls my office, where I drop everything when I come in off the road—clothes, computers, books, belts, caps, mail, and periodicals I intend to read but probably never will. There may even be a box of ginger snaps. I don’t want anybody to touch anything in my “office.” Of course, Hazel usually lowers the boom when the chair gets so full you can’t tell the color of the fabric and, despite my protest, moves things around.

  I have my own personal cabinet in the entrance hall that resembles a miniature version of Fibber McGee’s closet. When opened, there is perpetual danger of fomenting a small avalanche of knives, bullets, fishing lures, shoulder holsters, gun cleaning kits, bits and pieces of leather, sharpening tools, and all manner of my hoarded treasures.

  I won’t even go into what my personal drawer in the kitchen looks like.

  To say I’m messy would be like calling Lake Pontchartrain a mud puddle. But my long-suffering wife loves me anyway, even if I do get salt all over the table when I eat, occasionally forget to completely shut the refrigerator door, and get toothpaste and shaving cream on the bathroom mirror.

  Hazel is in charge of every room in our house except the den. My exclusive domain is filled with Western art, bronze sculptures, Kachina dolls, muzzle loaders and flintlocks on the wall, a tanned fox hide, a painted cow skull, handmade knives, and swords. It also has our best TV and is likely to be the loudest room in the house during the NFL season.

  In mild weather Hazel and I like to sit on the upstairs screened-in porch and listen to the night critters praise their Maker. Once in a while we hear a whip-poor-will that always sounds a long way off. In the summer there’s usually a big bullfrog sounding off down at the big pond and maybe the soft knicker of a horse or “Where’s Momma?” call from one of this year’s calves.

  I can stay at Twin Pines Ranch for days on end and never go outside the gate and be perfectly happy. You could find me astride a horse, trying to fool one of the largemouth in the big pond, or in the back pasture sliding around in the mud on a four-wheeler.

  About a quarter of a mile down the road as the crow flies is another two-story, split-log structure that houses the offices and recording studio of The Charlie Daniels Band, where a small dedicated group of people show up on a daily basis and run the day-to-day business, organizing tours, keeping the books, and doing publicity, publishing, and all the other activities involved in keeping the CDB rolling.

  I love my employees and know their spouses, children, and, in some cases, grandchildren. Our organization is small but totally efficient, with no wasted effort or overlapping. Everybody has a job to do, and they do it well.

  My philosophy for hiring an employee is first of all to hire somebody who is capable of doing the job. They must have a willingness to do whatever it takes to get the job done, regardless of the time and effort involved and, above all else, have a good attitude and honesty.

  Then I believe in getting out of their way and letting them work. If they have a problem or a decision that requires my involvement, I am readily available. Otherwise, take the initiative and get it done.

  The Twin Pines staff take care of the ranch. Thurman Mullins is the ranch manager and makes most of the decisions having to do with the sale and purchase of cattle and horses. He chooses which pastures are grazed and when and keeps a close eye on the place. He is apt to be at any part of the property at any time of the day or night and is the first one called in cases of a burglar alarm going off or any kind of problem concerning security at the ranch.

  Leroy Crawford is top hand and can handle anything concerning a tractor or livestock, and he has a way with horses few people do. He can gentle a fresh colt, put a handle on him, and have him ready to ride in a few months.

  Brud Spickard is the all-around handyman, lives at the front gate, and is very choosy about who is allowed through it.

  Donna Copeland, J. B.’s wife, is Hazel’s personal assistant and makes sure the house is taken care of when we are gone. She’s a great organizer and does the extensive decorating at our house every Christmas. She does the major household shopping and handles a lot of details.

  I tell people that my day-to-day life is run by three women. Three very strong-willed ladies, I might add. One, of course, is my wife, Hazel. Another is Paula Szeigis. And the other is Bebe Evans.

  Of course, Hazel is my constant companion and figures into almost every decision I make.

  Bebe and Paula know more about where I’m going to be and what I’m going to be doing in the near future than I do.

  Bebe is in charge of the touring department. The show offers from promoters come through our booking agency and to her desk. She accepts them or doesn’t accept them depending on a lot of elements like price, routing, scheduling, and so on.

  If she accepts an offer, she plugs it into the system and it goes to the road manager, Jimmy Burton, to be advanced for all pertinent and practical information. The sound man, Bob Workman, and lighting director, Brian Maderis, check out electric power, sound, and light companies involved and all other technical considerations.

  After Jimmy and Bob do their thing, there is another follow-up call from Bebe to make sure all the bases are covered. The date is passed on to Paula, who sets up radio and press interviews to publicize the concert. She also handles the mail-outs and publicity mats used in print ads and other visual publicity.

  Paula sets up telephone interviews on a weekly basis. She also accompanies me on promotion trips to do publicity blitzes in major markets when we are working a new record, book, or some other project.

  J. B. Copeland is office manager and handles anything to do with money, from processing the payroll to paying the bills. He does so with an efficiency that would make an IRS agent proud. He can lay his hand on any figures you need in a matter of minutes and documents every cent that comes through his hands.

  Paula and Bebe are fierce guardians of my time and my safety. Both are completely convinced that I am not capab
le of catching an airplane alone or even driving myself thirty-five miles into Nashville for a doctor’s appointment. When Hazel, Paula, and Bebe join forces, I just give in and do whatever they want. It ain’t worth the effort to do otherwise.

  After a concert date is accepted, vetted, advanced, and approved, it is passed on to our travel agent, Nick Gold. He finds accommodations in proximity of the venue that have ample parking for two forty-five-foot buses and a truck and a block of rooms available.

  Angela Wheeler is the secretary for my manager, David Corlew. She also does the CDB itinerary and handles any number of odds and ends that pop up all the time.

  DeAnna Winn directs phone calls and runs the Volunteers, the CDB fan club.

  Randy Owen works with Charlie Jr. in the publishing end of things. And everybody helps everybody else if the need arises.

  When a date is added to the books, an itinerary is published, leaving times established, equipment loaded on the truck, maps routed out, and the CDB rolls.

  Jimmy Potts drives the equipment truck. His son Chris is the relief driver and merchandise manager, handling the sale of T-shirts, caps, CDs, and such.

  The band and road crew ride on a bus named the Lady LaRue. It was named after my mother, who passed away several years ago. There are two drivers on the Lady LaRue. A daytime driver, Jackie McClure, and a nighttime driver, Steve Morgan, are necessary because of the miles they travel and the schedule they have to keep. They may deadhead from Nashville to San Francisco, stopping only for fuel and food.

  The bus Hazel and I travel on has been driven for the last thirty years by Dean Tubb, who is like a second son to us. He comes from a prominent country music family; he is the youngest son of the great Ernest Tubb.

  When Dean’s son Evan was born in 1997, Hazel and I unofficially adopted him as our grandson. He became a part of our lives. He really is a grandson in every sense of the word and travels with us when he is out of school in the summertime.

  And then, after Evan’s mother, Meleia, remarried, she had a daughter named Alaya in 2008, and we unofficially adopted her too. We had never had a little girl in our lives, and we love our two adopted grandchildren and thoroughly enjoy spending time with them.

  Jimmy Burton rides herd on the road operation. He is responsible for everything that happens before the band takes the stage, from leaving times, dressing room assignments, transportation for the crew and band, and making sure the show runs smoothly.

  Roger Campbell handles my instruments and is my onstage roadie. We have worked together for so long that I can look at him and mouth a word and he knows what I’m talking about. He responds whether I’ve broken a string or just decided to do a song I need a different instrument to play.

  Bob Workman is responsible for how the band sounds out front and takes his job seriously. He spends hours before the show adjusting the out-front sound and the onstage monitors.

  Bryan Madaris, our lighting director, rounds out our small but efficient traveling unit. We usually log close to a hundred thousand miles a year and do in excess of a hundred shows a year.

  We don’t have unimportant people in our outfit. Everybody has a job to do, and at some time during the day or night, that job is the most important one in the bunch.

  When we roll, the drivers are the most important. They drive through the midnight hours with a busload of sleeping people. Those lives are in the driver’s hands. The same is true with the truck. If our equipment doesn’t make it, we can’t do the show.

  When we hit town, the road crew becomes the most important faction, unloading and setting up our equipment, setting the lights, fine tuning the sound system, provisioning the dressing rooms, and having everything ready to go on time.

  And here I’d like to say a word about refreshment riders. They are the part of the concert contract that deals with food and drink supplied by the promoter for the band and crew.

  There was a time when a lot of food was put into the band’s dressing room every night, such as deli and pastry trays, candy and desserts, finger foods, and a variety of beverages and condiments. Most of it was wasted every night, as the band didn’t particularly care to eat before a show and were more into the after-show pizza they get every night than deli trays that have set for hours without refrigeration.

  All I ask a promoter to do is to feed my road crew. They have to spend the day at the venue. If they provide the beverages we need to get us through the night, they can forget catering the dressing room with food that will be wasted.

  I once knew of a manager who would include rare, expensive wines on the band’s rider, which he took home for his private wine cellar. Try finding a bottle of Lafite Rothschild 1947 in a little town in Georgia.

  Making promoters jump through hoops just because you can is ridiculous, and they don’t forget it.

  Our shows start on time.

  Barring a technical glitch or a request from the promoter to let all the crowd get in and get settled, CDB shows start exactly when they’re supposed to. If the ticket says eight o’clock, the show starts at eight o’clock.

  There is usually very little plausible reason for a show to run late. I have no patience with bands who, for no other reason than sloppiness and ego, make the paying customers wait for a show to start.

  Jimmy Burton is standing in the wings with my fiddle, and I ask him the same thing every night.

  “Do we have any impediments?”

  Meaning, is there anything between here and where I’m going onstage that will trip me up? The reason I do that is because one night going onstage I tripped on a cord and fractured my shoulder. I want to make sure the way is clear before I hustle onstage.

  If there is an obstacle, he points it out and then keys his radio and says the same thing every night.

  “Bob Workman, start that ‘Tennessee Waltz.’ Skin ’er back, it’s showtime!”

  Patti Page’s timeless version of the “Tennessee Waltz” starts playing; it is followed by a short bombastic classical piece Chris Wormer and myself wrote called “Notte Pericolosa.” Sean Hannity’s recorded voice says, “From Mount Juliet, Tennessee, The Charlie Daniels Band!”

  And then it’s off to the races.

  CHAPTER 40

  HEART OF MY HEART, ROCK OF MY SOUL, YOU CHANGED MY LIFE WHEN YOU TOOK CONTROL

  Up until now I have only mentioned my faith, but I have not gone into detail about what or how I believe.

  I’ve been asked about my testimony many times and have never really formulated a cohesive response. The story goes through many phases and covers many years and is an ongoing part of my life.

  I was raised in a Christian family, and from the time of my earliest remembrances I heard the phrase, “Jesus died for our sins.” As I look back, I accepted it as fact, although I really had little comprehension of what it actually meant and how it applied to the salvation of my soul.

  As with many young people of my day, I figured that the path to salvation lay along the road of righteousness. Being good enough and not sinning was the only way to gain eternal life. In essence, you had to live an almost perfect life, and once you made your profession of faith, you could lose your salvation by sinning.

  I went to all kinds of churches in my youth. Both sides of my family had been Methodists. But when I reached adolescence, I branched out and went to services ranging from dignified Presbyterian to spirit-filled Holiness where the sermons were fire and brimstone and the congregants spoke in tongues.

  But of all the churches I went to, I can’t ever remember anybody ever explaining in full to me how Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross applied to my personal salvation, why it was necessary, or how it paid for my sins.

  So, I was still of the opinion that it had to do with my performance rather than what Jesus Christ had done on the cross two thousand years ago. I had to prove myself worthy. Any sin I committed could remove all the good I had ever tried to do and cancel out my salvation, whatever I perceived it to be.

  The impossibility of
living a totally sin-free life didn’t really register in my young mind. Doubt and confusion set in, reinforced by the strict doctrine of the church I was going to at the time. That church frowned on women cutting their hair, on going to movies, and the wearing of makeup and jewelry, and they had zero tolerance for alcohol and tobacco. It basically favored a cloistered lifestyle away from the wiles of the world and the temptations of society.

  If you asked about the liberal consumption of wine in the Bible, the stock answer was that it was not the kind of wine that would lead to inebriation. It was some form of mild grape drink that was only referred to as wine. It is a bogus answer because there are accounts in the Bible of people getting inebriated from consuming too much wine.

  And if drinking wine was a sin, why would Jesus change water into wine?

  Now, I am not promoting the use of alcohol and certainly not condoning overindulgence. But as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6:12, “Everything is permissible for me; but not all things are helpful” (ampc). Overindulgence in many things is bad for you, and good sense and moderation in all things is the answer.

  But to twist the Scripture to make a theological point that suits your purposes or supports your dogma could open a whole plethora of questions to someone seeking clarity and truth.

  I know that there is a lot of symbolism and mystery in the Bible, but it is my belief that most of the Scripture can and should be taken literally.

  When it says that the whale swallowed Jonah, I believe it means that Jonah was swallowed whole by a gigantic fish. When it says that Jesus broke a few loaves of bread and fish and fed five thousand people, I believe it happened just that way.

  When the Bible says that the walls of Jericho fell or that the Red Sea opened so the Israelites could go through to the other side, I believe that the waters parted and stayed that way long enough for a million or more men, women, and children plus their livestock and possessions to cross.

  Substance, not symbolism.

  I was told once by a lady of that church that if you were in a movie house when Jesus came back, He wouldn’t have time to come and get you.