In 1964, Daniels sold a song "It Hurts Me" to Elvis Presley. Daniels recorded his first solo album, Charlie Daniels, in 1970. His first hit, "Uneasy Rider", came off his 1972 second album, Honey in the Rock. In 1974, Daniels organized the first in a series of Volunteer Jam concerts. Daniels won a Grammy for Best Country Vocal in 1979 for "The Devil Went Down to Georgia". Other Daniels' hits include "In America", "The South's Gonna Do It", "Long Haired Country Boy", "Still in Saigon", and "The Legend of Wooley Swamp".
Daniels, who wrote "Carolina (I Love You)" about his youth, was the son of a lumberjack and was raised with a love of bluegrass music.
The CharlieDanielsBand was formed in 1970, with Daniels joined by Barry Barnes (guitar), Mark Fitzgerald (bass), Fred Edwards and Garry Allen (drums), and Joel "Taz" Di Gregorio (keyboards).
When Daniels moved to Epic in 1976, there was a concerted effort to turn the band into a major concert attraction, despite the fact that at 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighing 20 stone Daniels was no teenage idol: he hid his face under an oversized cowboy hat.