Charlie Daniels

"Uneasy Rider" is still perfect--a tall tale of a new outlaw, peace-loving but not a damn fool about it, grabbing a redneck by the symbolic short hair. But a year later "The South's Gonna Do It" sang the praises of long-haired rednecks, and he never looked back. A safer tall tale, the predictable "Devil Went Down to Georgia," put him back on the singles charts in 1979, and in 1980 the Russkie-baiting "America" proved what the self-reliant individualism of "Long Haired Country Boy" was good for. Already pushing fifty, he's just a Southerner of a certain generation. Sometimes he's a lot of fun. If he sang as good as Merle Haggard we might even forgive his jingoism. (Grade: B)