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 2014, the CDB was approached to record a song for a Macy’s 4th of July TV special. The producers pitched a song they wanted the band to perform.
Keep in mind at this point, my focus at CDB was dragging the website and social media into the modern era of websites that were built to reformat to tablets, phones or desktop web browsers, and upgrading our website store with exclusive online only merchandise. I was only on the fringes of anything music-related like this.
So, the special aired in 2014 and that was the last that pretty much anyone had thought about the song around the CDB offices.
Soon after, Blue Hat Records landed a new distributor and Dad started working on his Bob Dylan tribute album, ‘Off the Grid-Doin’ it Dylan,’ and being the road dog that he was up until 2020 put an end to touring, first because of Covid, second because Dad was called home that July, touring took front seat and the Macy's song came and went with little fanfare, even though it was prominently featured in the special.
I’ve written pretty extensively about how I struggled to find my footing in the years after Dad left us, with regards to managing and expanding upon his legacy.
Last year, the Macy’s fireworks song popped into my head. Thinking it had potential, but not knowing the circumstances, I had to start doing some heavy-duty research.
Sometimes when artists are brought a specific song for a specific purpose – like the Macy’s special – those situations can be what is called “work for hire,” meaning that the artist would not own the recording so it was all in the hands of the persons or entity which held the rights to the recording.
I was able to contact one of the songwriters for the project, Bill Schermerhorn, who was working closely with Macy’s at the time, and he let me know that we were free and clear to do with the song as we pleased, and he was excited for the song to be released.
I passed along to our distributor for Blue Hat, and they liked the idea, I even sent them a copy of the song, and basically took it off my plate at that point.
Well, 2025 was a complicated year for me, I had some health issues that I was dealing with of my own and we also did some shuffling with the ownership of Blue Hat which left boxes and boxes of files to try to sort through in order to get a handle on.
Within the chaos of 2025, the song fell through the cracks.
Realizing that nothing had happened since I sent this to our distributor about a year and a half ago, I followed up to see if we could still get it out before the 4thof July.
It dawned on me that we were missing the boat with this being the 250thAnniversary of our founding, and we needed to make sure we got it out in time.
But…
When I inquired, it was pointed out to me that what I had sent them was a rough mix, and not the final mixed and mastered copy needed for production.
Ugh…
So that meant I needed to do more digging. I reached out to the engineer who did the recording and he told me who had done the mastering and to check with them. The company had changed hands since then, but he gave me the new owner’s information. BUT! The new owner was in the process of relocating his studio and all of his hard drives which would have the files on them were boxed up and it would be most likely early June before he could even get to the boxes to search for the right hard drive.
At this point I’m about to lose my mind because in said mind, the only other option was to get the original audio masters, remix send off for mastering, and no idea when we would get it back or if it would even be before July 4th.
So, I reached out to a former CDB/Blue Hat employee, Angela Wheeler, who tried to help me track it down. The file folders and stacks of CDs in her old office were no help, but she found an email chain where the mastered copy was sent to Macy’s and that ended up being the key.
The email she had was that of (surprise!) Bill Schermerhorn. I hadn’t realized that he had been working with Macy’s at the time, so much so that he had a Macy’s email.
I went back and emailed Bill and he said if he didn’t have it, Doug Katsaros – his co-writer on the song – most likely would.
As good as his word, he was able to get me the file on June 29, and as of today, it is in the pipeline for release.
On June 16th, for the first time in 12 years, we will finally be able to offer fans the previously only heard once on the Macy’s special, “My Home” by The Charlie Daniels Band.
The timing for the release also means that it will be out on July 4th, as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founding of our great nation, the day of the very first Legend of Charlie Daniels show at Ft. Campbell and two days before the 6th anniversary of Dad being called home on July 6th.
All this is leading up to what would have been Dad’s 90th birthday in October, beginning the tenth decade of Charlie Daniels.
The legacy train is just starting to chug along, hang on for the ride!
Let’s all make the day count!
Pray for our troops, our police, the Peace of Jerusalem and our nation.
God Bless America!
#SonyReleaseHonkyTonkAve
#BenghaziAintGoingAway #End22<
- Charlie Daniels, Jr.
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