October 28, 2026, marks 90 years since Dad was born.

A previous engagement in the most heavenly and glorious venue you could ever imagine will prevent him from celebrating with us, but we will still celebrate that we had him with us for 83 years, and celebrate 90 years since he came into our world and left an indelible mark on music and pop culture in general, not to mention touching the lives of too many people to count.

This is less of a Soapbox Jr. and more of a promotion for a couple of very special events for the family of the late Western author, Louis L'Amour.

As I have written about previously, Louis – Pronounced Louie – and Dad became friends after Dad dedicated the CDB’s ‘High Lonesome’ album to Louis and photorealistic artist James Bama who painted many western-themed paintings.

Twenty-five years ago, the world was moving along as usual. People were going to work, dealing with their day-to-day lives as they had done countless times before.

Until the world changed in an instant.

Well, Labor Day has come and gone, the unofficial end of summer – even though we’re having record highs just a few days before fall begins in Tennessee – but it’s still time fold up the beach blankets, put away the charcoal grill and stick the magnetic football schedule to the side of the refrigerator.

I come from a long line of people who made a living by the sweat of their brows and the labor of their hands. Hands that could handle a plow or a crosscut saw, break an ornery mule or hold an infant baby.

My Mom, Hazel Daniels has been a widow for six years now, and like me, she misses Dad every single day of her life. As sad as it was losing Dad, they still had 56 years together.

Contrast that with Ronnie Van Zant’s widow, Judy. Judy became a widow in 1977, almost 50 years ago.

To paraphrase the title song from the long-running musical, “Hello, Dolly!”,

“Goodbye, Dolly, well, goodbye, Dolly, it’s so nice to have you back where you belong.”

I have no doubt that Dolly Parton joined her husband, Carl Dean earlier today and that Dad and a lot of others welcomed her as part of the heavenly choir and band this morning.

Obviously today is an exciting day as we released “The Best of the Charlie Daniels Band Volunteer Jam” on all major streaming platforms.

Response has been great, and we’ve heard some great feedback from fans.

But I discovered something else pretty exciting today. I found a service that allows artists/managers/record labels to track lifetime streams on Spotify. You used to be able to do this inside the Spotify for Artists site which gave you more analytics than you could possibly comprehend, but for some reason, about 6 or 7 years ago, they cut it to just the last 12 months.

Previously on Soapbox Jr…

July 4^th, 2026

The very first Legend of Charlie Daniels show was to be a tie in with America 250, as Ft. Campbell, KY was one of a limited number of sites that were to have moments televised during the official America 250 TV specials.

As with the best of plans, it didn’t work out that way.

As I sit here, it’s Saturday morning/afternoon, July 11, 2020, the day after we laid my father to rest.

I think it goes without saying, that this has been the worst week of my life, bar none. The man I’ve known for 55 years, who, along with my mom, have always been there for me is gone.

We’re still shell-shocked.

“There's a lot to be said for staying in your comfort zone, but a lot more to be said for getting out of it. Let's all make the day count.” - Charlie Daniels

That quote from Dad especially resonates with me on the eve of our first The Legend of Charlie Daniels show.

I have a love/hate relationship with AI technology. I know how helpful it can be in reducing time doing small tedious tasks for me like mockups for new tees and other merchandise, however, AI isn’t always as “I” as you would expect it to be which often leads to more headaches than you had anticipated.

But when you’re wearing as many hats as I am these days, a little help with time-consuming tasks, so I’m embracing it with limitations and with caution.

There are several scenes in the classic 1980 movie “The Blues Brothers” where Jake – played by John Belushi and his brother, Elwood – Dan Ackroyd - go to various places of employment of their former bandmates in order to convince them to help raise money for the taxes on the orphanage Jake and Elwood grew up in.

Hello again.

I promised exciting things for 2026, so far we have announce the Legend of Charlie Daniels show this 4th of July at Ft. Campbell, and ‘Best of the Charlie Daniels Band Volunteer Jam’ compilation album of which two tracks are already available – the first live performance of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” a very hot live performance of “In America,” and now “The South’s Gonna Do It (Again)” from VolJam XIII on June 12.

But I promised some more surprises and I don’t want to disappoint, but first, here’s a little bit of history for you.

In 1976, the United States of America celebrated two hundred years since it declared its independence from Great Britain.

That summer, I was 11-years-old, and I remember it well. Being anti-American wasn’t really a widespread thing at the time, so the stars and stripes motif was everywhere and the national “malaise” of the late 70s hadn’t really kicked into high gear yet, so patriotism was proudly on display.

I started writing this back in March, but as is sometimes the case, other things take priority and something lower priority like this gets put on the back burner. It’s also not the kind of subject I usually tackle, since most things I write are about Dad at the core, although I have dabbled in some political/current events over the years, but not so much lately.

But a few months ago I did write about sharing Tennessee Titans football with Dad and a melancholy stroll around the soon to be empty stadium now known as Nissan Stadium on the last home game of the 2025 season, so we’ll call this a follow up.

Since the middle of February, rumors began to swirl about a new logo and look for the Tennessee Titans, which is the team I cheer for… not that there has been much to cheer for the past few years, starting with the team itself.

Almost 52 years ago, the CDB packed 2,000 fans into War Memorial Auditorium in Nashville, TN for what would prove to be a historical night, the very first Volunteer Jam.

Though it began as a live recording session to record two live tracks for the band’s upcoming ‘Fire on the Mountain’ album, it became something much more, an event in its own right, a ‘happening,’ so much so that it became a mostly annual event from 1974 off and on through 1996, and then revived in 2015.

By now you have probably heard the announcement or seen the press release on Thursday March 26^th about The Legend of Charlie Daniels show this 4^th of July at Ft. Campbell, and you’re probably wondering what the heck that’s all about.

Well, the idea – or rather ideas - go back to the week after Dad went home on July 6, 2020.

Last week I unknowingly unleashed a hornet’s nest with a simple factual statement.

Was it some highly-charged bold political statement like Dad might have made before he left us? Was I calling out someone for their behavior in a controversial way?

Nope, it was pretty uneventful, but the controversy followed nonetheless.

Y'all will have to excuse me, I just got punched in the gut today. 3 Doors Down co-founder and front man, Brad Arnold went home to be with the Lord today (2/7/2026) after being diagnosed with cancer early last year.

This is extremely hard for multiple reasons. For one, he was only 47 and still had a lot of life left in him, a life that was a gift, because ten years ago, he was headed down a road that could have taken him years ago. 

Sunday, January 4, 2026 officially marked the end of the 2025 NFL regular season. If your team makes the playoffs, you get at least one more game—and a shot at the “Big Game,” or as it’s sometimes legally referred to unless you’re an official sponsor… the “Superb Owl.”

On that day, my Tennessee Titans were soundly defeated by longtime rivals, the Jacksonville Jaguars —a rivalry that dates back to 1995, when the Jags entered the league as an expansion team in the AFC Central alongside the Steelers, Bengals, Ravens (freshly moved from Cleveland by Art Modell), and the Houston Oilers, who would soon relocate and eventually become the Tennessee Titans.

In December of 2020, I wrote extensively about Dad’s absence around the holidays which now have the taint of melancholy to which I coined the phrase, “Sadiversary.” And it’s true, I ran the emotional gamut that year, and it was exhausting.

Something very significant happened this week, a piece of CDB musical history has been carefully, lovingly and painstakingly preserved.

It involves the most recognizable of all CDB songs, the song that despite its inauspicious beginnings made a simple story created out of necessity into one of the most recognizable songs of the 20th Century and still going strong into the 21st.

Round 1.

We all know and love the story of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” the song that was written as an afterthought that became one of the most iconic songs of the 20th Century and is still wildly popular over forty-six years after its release.

In fact, as I’m finishing up this Soapbox, Jr., it just happens to be December 5, 2025, forty-seven years to the day that “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” was recorded.

It keeps getting harder to believe that Dad would have been 89 this year... almost 90! There’s not a day that goes by that there’s a question I want to ask him about. It may be a question about his career, something related to the business, advice or just how he’s doing.

Not too long ago, I wrote about the trend that was going on Facebook – and I don’t mean viral trend – was dozens of AI generated final tour announcements for 2026.

Remember when Facebook and their parent company, Meta, used to try to shut down anything they deemed “fake” on their platform? 

Apparently, that’s ancient history.