In 1971, after playing on the road and picking on Nashville sessions for 15 years, Charlie Daniels decided to settle not far from Nashville, in the small town of Mt. Juliet, and form his own band.
With the Charlie Daniels Band's first hometown sellout concert, Charlie decided to celebrate the occasion by inviting a few friends to stop by and "do some jamming," little knowing a tradition was about to be launched.
The site was Nashville's 2,400 seat War Memorial Auditorium in October 1974, and among those who dropped in were members of The Marshall Tucker Band and The Allman Brothers Band. The concert turned out to be free-wheeling, rowdy, lengthy and a smashing success. So much so that it was repeated the next year...and the next...and the next, evolving into a musical event to rival all others in the United States.
Performers from this first "JAM," that came to be known as THE VOLUNTEER JAM, were included in the band's first album, FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN, and tapes of the event were aired on some 100 stations across the country.
The first year's 2,400 revelers joined 13,000 of their friends at Murfreesboro, Tennessee's Murphy Center in September of 1975 for another advance sellout, and more musical friends turned out to join the CDB and first year performers. The evening was documented in VOLUNTEER JAM, the first full-length Southern Rock motion picture, and taped broadcasts were aired on some 120 radio stations.
With VOLUNTEER JAM III, the event established a traditional site and month at Nashville's Municipal Auditorium in January of 1977. Another advance sellout included mail orders from as far as New York and California. The rowdy bash attained the stature of a civic event, inspiring mayoral and gubernatorial proclamations, and more than 250 radio stations aired two-hour tapes of the JAM via the King Biscuit Radio network.
In 1978, more parties, more guests, more proclamations and another advance sellout. Local television produced documentaries and nightly features, King Biscuit presented the JAM as one of its six annual 90-minute specials, and a live AM broadcast reached some 18 million listeners on the Eastern seaboard. Subsequently, Epic Records released a two-record set, VOLUNTEER JAM III and IV.
With VOLUNTEER JAM V, the CDB previewed material from the now double-platinum album, MILLION MILE REFLECTIONS, which included the international hit and Country Music Association "Single of the Year": The Devil Went Down To Georgia. JAM V spawned a PBS documentary, a special live broadcast over the VOLUNTEER JAM network to six Tennessee cities, and another Eastern seaboard live broadcast.
In 1980, more than 25 guest performers joined the CDB to celebrate the band's breakthrough to multi-platinum status with MILLION MILE REFLECTIONS. The event was broadcast live over the now traditional VOLUNTEER JAM network and recorded for later syndicated broadcasts over the 250-station King Biscuit network. Epic Records' VOLUNTEER JAM VI album documents the bash, which was also the subject of a syndicated television program.
Throughout the years, the JAM has drawn such luminaries as Willie Nelson, Alvin Lee, Jimmy Hall, Sea Level, Bonnie Bramlet, Papa John Creach, Crystal Gayle, Billy Joe Shaver, John Prine, Delbert McClinton, Rufus Thomas, Ted Nugent, Elvin Bishop, Mickey Gilley and Al Kooper, among a host of other top performers who lend their time and talent free to help the CDB celebrate another successful year.
Notes Charlie, "It began as, and will continue to remain the band's homecoming concert - a family reunion of sorts, and above all, an informal (but extremely well-organized) musical party."
For VOLUNTEER JAM VII, the Charlie Daniels Band really had something to celebrate. During a year considered generally rough in the record industry, the band turned in an award-winning performance. They had just completed their most successful 12 months in the band's history, as evidenced in national exposure, a standing-room-only Australian and European tour and both Grammy® and Country Music Association awards. In addition, their 1980 album, FULL MOON, and the FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN album, which contained portions of VOLUNTEER JAM I, were both certified platinum. And, when long-awaited tickets to JAM VII went on sale early in December in Nashville, they were completely sold out within two hours.
Not unlike any previous years, CDB fans gathered in cowboy hats and boots and tuned up their Rebel yells to roar in unison with Charlie, "Ain't it good to be alive and to be in Tennessee?" "Long live Southern Rock!" yells one cowboy with hair to his waist, causing another to counter with "The South's Gonna Do It Again!" - as fitting a tribute to CDB as there can be.
The JAM kicked in at 6 p.m. with the first bars of Southern Rock laid down by Grinderswitch. The eight-hour musical event of the year had begun.
Some 25 acts showed up for the occasion including Billy Joel, Roy Acuff, Delbert McClinton, Molly Hatchet, Ted Nugent, Bobby Bare, Crystal Gayle, Johnny Lee, The Marshall Tucker Band, Mickey Gilley, The Henry Paul Band, Shakin' Stevens from England, Jimmy Hall, Papa John Creach, The Jordanaires, John McEuen, Jerry Mills, McGuffey Lane, The Winters Brothers, Jimmy C. Newman, Dobie Gray, Kelly Harland and Ben Smathers and the Stoney Mountain Cloggers.
Others who followed the lead of the CDB attire tradition were Ted Nugent, an avid big game hunter, who showed up with a military camouflaged cowboy hat; Papa John Creach, who donned a white cowboy hat, and Roy Acuff, The King Of Country Music who has never been known to wear a hat on stage, who bought a black felt hat especially for the occasion in a local department store and added his own white feather band he'd been saving.
By 2 a.m., almost every type of music had been presented, from rockabilly by Billy Joel and Shakin' Stevens to thunderous rock sets by Molly Hatchet and Ted Nugent. Papa John Creach provided some fancy fiddlin', and Jimmy C. Newman provided a taste of Cajun music.
As the Tennessee Waltz signaled the call to arms for the CDB earlier in the evening, so did the tune signal the closing to another successful JAM.
JAM VII was carried live for eight hours via radio to seven stations in the South and was later replayed, in part, to scores of other stations across the country.
It was a special evening.
Special in that the evening was dedicated in memory of Tommy Caldwell, the late Marshall Tucker bass player and close friend to the CDB, who died in an auto accident April, 1980.
Special in that Roy Acuff took the occasion to present Charlie with a collection of sheet music containing all the songs he has sung on the GRAND OLE OPRY during his career. "I'm giving these songs to you as a keepsake. I want to be a part of your life, and these songs are my life."
And special in that it culminated the CDB's best year yet with friends and fans.
