The Charlie Daniels Band releases its hit single "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" - June 23rd, 1979

On this day in 1979, The Charlie Daniels Band released a hit single called “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio, Hello and Welcome to this Day in History Class,
a show that belts out the greatest hits of history
one day at a time. I'm Gay Bluesier, and today
we're exploring the story behind one of the most famous

(00:20):
songs in country rock history, including its unexpected ties to
classic literature. The day was June twenty three, nineteen seventy nine,
the Charlie Daniels Band released a hit single called The

(00:42):
Devil Went Down to Georgia. The song was the first
radio single from the band's nineteen seventy nine studio album
Million Mile Reflections. It proved to be a rare crossover
hit that summer, steadily climbing both country and pop music charts.
In late August, the song hit number one on Billboard's

(01:03):
Hot Country Songs chart, and in mid September, it peaked
at number three on Billboard's All Genre Hot one hundred,
just behind after The Love Is Gone by Earth Wind
and Fire and My Sharona by the Neck. The Fiery
Fiddle heavy ballad tells the story of a man named
Johnny who squares off in a musical contest against the

(01:26):
Devil himself. Let's take a listen the boys that my
name's Johnny, and it might be a sin, but I'll
take your bet. You're gonna regret because I'm the best.
Is every ben Johnny, up your phone and play your
fiddle hard because Hell's proclusive Georgia and the Devil deals
and hards and if you and you get the shiny
bit a little bit of gold, but if you get

(01:49):
your soul. As the song explains, the devil was in
a bind because he was way behind, presumably on the
voda of souls he needed to collect that month to
help make his numbers. The devil sets his sights on Johnny,
a brash young fiddle player from the Deep South who

(02:10):
seems like an easy mark. Satan proposes a fiddle contest
between the two of them, wagering a golden fiddle against
Johnny's immortal soul. The young man takes the bet without
a second thought, and in the end his confidence proves justified.
Johnny gives such an inspired performance that the Devil can't

(02:30):
deny he's been bested. He lays the golden prize at
Johnny's feet and SLINKs away, defeated, making a deal with
the devil for personal gain is a classic literary theme.
One of the earliest and most popular examples is the
sixteenth century German tale of Faust, a depressed scholar who
trades his soul to Satan in exchange for infinite knowledge

(02:53):
and some sweet magic powers. That popular legend has inspired
countless reinterpretations of the concept of bargaining with the devil.
For example, in nineteen thirty six, Stephen Vincent Bannet put
his spin on the idea in a short story called
The Devil and Daniel Webster. It tells the tale of

(03:14):
a struggling New Hampshire farmer who sells his soul for
a better life, and later tries to get out of
the deal with the help of his lawyer, Daniel Webster.
Charlie Daniels read that story in his youth and later
cited it as inspiration for his similarly themed song Amazingly, though,
that wasn't the only work by Stephen Vincent Bannet that

(03:35):
inspired The Devil Went Down to Georgia. Daniels was also
familiar with a nineteen poem by the author titled The
Mountain Whipper Will or How hill Billy Jim Won the
Great Fiddler's Prize. As that subtitle suggests, the poem is
about an underdog who fiddles his heart out and wins

(03:57):
first place at a contest. There's no deal with the Devil,
but the poem does include lines like Hell's broke loose
in Georgia and fire on the Mountains, Snakes in the grass,
Satan's here a bilin, Oh, Lordy let him pass. Binet's
stories clearly left an impression on Daniels as a child,

(04:18):
but he didn't consciously set out to write a song
combining them as an adult. In fact, The Devil went
Down to Georgia only came about because the band realized
they didn't have a fiddle centric song for their new album.
That was a problem since the band viewed fiddle songs
as a link to their bluegrass roots and knew that

(04:38):
fans would be disappointed if that uniquely country instrument wasn't
given its due. Daniels later spoke about the recording process,
saying quote, we had rehearsed, written and recorded the music
for our Million Mile Reflections album, and all of a
sudden we said we don't have a fiddle song. I
don't know why we didn't discover that, but we went

(05:00):
out and we took a couple of days break from
the recording studio, went into a rehearsal studio, and I
just had this idea, the Devil went down to Georgia.
It may have come from an old poem that Stephen
Vincent Benet wrote many many years ago. He didn't use
that line, but I just started and the band started playing,
and first thing you know, we had it down. The

(05:23):
energetic song they came up with was a country twist
on the classic idea of a devil's bargain. The song
is built around Daniel's spoken word telling of the story,
as well as two strikingly different musical interludes, a pair
of fiddle solos, one to represent the Devil's performance and
one to represent Johnny's. Both solos are performed by Charlie Daniels,

(05:47):
but you'd never guess it was the same guy playing them.
The devil style is showy, inconsistent, and lacks a clear melody.
Johnny's style, on the other hand, is much smoother and

(06:07):
more melodic. Daniels later explained these choices, saying, quote, the
Devil's just blowing smoke. There's no melody to it. There's

(06:29):
no nothing. It's just a bunch of noise, just confusion
and stuff, and of course Johnny is saying something. The
song was a mainstream hit when it was released as
a single, pushing the Charlie Daniels band further into the
spotlight than they had ever been before. The song went
on to win a Grammy Award for the Best Country

(06:50):
Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. It also
got a second win the following year, when it was
included on the soundtrack for the John Travolta film Urban
all Boy. In the decades since, the song has been
covered by all kinds of artists, including Blues Traveler Primus Corn,
as well as both the Chipmunks and the Muppets. I'm

(07:14):
sure winning a Grammy was nice, but I think we
can all agree what the real honor was. I'm gay,
bluesier and hopefully you now know a little more about
history today than you did yesterday. If you have a
second and you're so inclined, consider following us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at T D I HC Show. You can

(07:37):
also rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts, or
you can write to me directly at this day at
I heart media dot Com. I'd love to hear what
you trade your soul for. Thanks to Chandler Mays for
producing the show, and thanks to you for listening. I'll
see you back here again tomorrow for another day in
history class. It beat a dent in the