Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Charlie Daniels hits December gold with official NFR song

Charlie Daniels

Scott Harrison/Retna/www.harrisonphotos.com

Charlie Daniels.

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Terry Fator and Charlie Daniels at Round 9 of the 53rd Wrangler National Finals Rodeo at the Thomas & Mack Center on Dec. 9, 2011.

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Charlie Daniels.

Charlie Daniels owes his affiliation with Las Vegas to Lake Tahoe.

And Frank Sinatra.

And Willie Nelson.

This rodeo ride to Las Vegas does make sense, as it has led Daniels to write an ode to Wrangler National Finals Rodeo. His song, “It Don’t Get No Better Than That,” is now the official song for the event and is available for download on iTunes beginning Oct. 12.

Daniels was asked at last year’s NFR to write a song specifically for the Las Vegas/Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association finale. It made sense, as he attends the event each year and over the past several years has headlined at Orleans Showroom during NFR’s 10-day run.

How he became a performer in the city was entirely unexpected. Shortly after “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” became a smash hit, Daniels was asked to headline Harrah’s in Lake Tahoe — by Willie Nelson.

Nelson had been asked to play the hotel-casino by Sinatra, who had canceled a week in Tahoe and needed a fill-in for seven nights. Nelson took four and in effect subleased the other three nights to The Charlie Daniels Band.

CDB, as it is known, took those dates and sold out every night.

“Up until then, I never played casinos,” Daniels says during a phone conversation before a show at Wild Rose Casino in Jefferson, Iowa. “The casinos were the domain of Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr., those sorts of people.

“But when we played in Tahoe, I never expected to have the reception we got. Every show was sold out in advance. I just had no idea — we had no entry into that world at all.”

Soon after, Daniels was booked for another sold-out run at the Sands on the Strip. He has been a Las Vegas kind of guy ever since, especially during NFR.

“I’ve been there a lot of different times a year, and during the NFR there seems like there is an aura about Las Vegas that doesn’t exist at any other time of the year,” Daniels says. “Everybody starts wearing cowboy hats.”

Daniels caught that spirit in “It Don’t Get No Better Than That.” While many songs have been played during NFR to reflect the rodeo experience, especially “Gone Country” by Alan Jackson, the Daniels tune mentions Las Vegas specifically.

Sample lyric from the country-rock number: “To be one of the cowboys headed to Nevada to try for the December gold, where the lights shine bright in the clear desert night and the people come to rock and roll.”

The idea was simple: Vegas-ize the song.

“This wasn’t going to be just a song about rodeo,” Daniels said. “One of the things I was asked when they wanted a song for the NFR was to incorporate subject that should be in the song.

“ ‘December gold’ was one of them, with just the 15 best in each event making it to the NFR. They wanted to mention Las Vegas because it is so closely associated with the NFR. That definitely had to be in there.”

Daniels remembers a couple of years ago when NFR seemed headed for Florida.

“That made no sense to me at all,” Daniels says. “And it didn’t make sense to a lot of people. That rodeo, in Las Vegas, go together. It’s just such a perfect match.

“I have nothing against Orlando, it’s a great town, but let Disney do its thing there. The rodeo in Las Vegas is a great marriage. It’s hard to imagine it anywhere else.”

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWiththeDish.

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