CHARLIE DANIELS: STRAIGHT TALKIN' TO A BOOGIE BEAT

His publicity material describes Charlie Daniels as the king of Southern country rock music. If true, his blend of hard-working-man values and back-40 growl, and his band's racheted-up boogie groove have made it so.

Now pushing 60, Daniels is flush with opinions about the way things ought to be, touring to support a new album unblinkingly titled "America, I Believe in You," and as independent as a bear.

"This country has more rights and opportunities than any other country I've been to," Daniels said in a telephone interview, "but I'll criticize this country in a New York minute."

Mostly, Daniels lets his songs do the talking, as they will when he and his band take the stage Friday, Sept. 17, at the SEMO District Fair.

Also performing at the fair will be the Gibson/Miller Band on Thursday, Sept. 16, and Collin Raye on Saturday, Sept. 18. All concerts will be at 7:30 p.m.

Daniels was born in 1936 in Wilmington, N.C., and ascribes the premium he puts on honesty and sincerity to his blue-collar background. "When I think about things, that's where I think about things from. How would it affect John that drives the pulpwood truck in North Carolina?"

A sampling of Daniels' opinions, solicited and otherwise:

-- "I don't like the socialistic approach. It don't work. It's bankrupted Russia."

-- "Half the people are working taking care of the other half."

-- "I believe in taking care of people who can't take care of themselves, but to encourage people to be dependent on the government ...is a bad idea."

-- "All I want the government to do for me is protect me."

-- "Clinton is talking about putting 50,000 more policemen on the street but Clinton is appointing liberal judges."

-- "We need some hanging judges...Some of these people don't deserve to live."

-- "It's time we got a little hardheaded with people. At the same time, I feel we have failed in our social obligations. In the meantime, do we make everybody suffer?"

-- "People say legalize drugs. Baloney. We've got to get back to law and order."

Daniels sometimes sounds like a good ol' boy with a guitar, but he layers it with a live-and-let-live attitude exemplified by one of his best-known lyrics: "If you don't like the way I'm living, leave this country boy alone."

He's also a man who knows the difference between music and business. "I've always been independent about recording...I want to sell records...but I can't be somebody else.

"I can't sell out to follow a trend or a fad. If you record something, 10 or 20 years down the line you've got to live with it."

Back in 1964, he co-wrote a song called "It Hurts Me." Elvis put it on the B side of "Kissin' Cousins," not one of his hits.

Nashville didn't embrace Charlie Daniels immediately. "I could not even get anybody to listen to me," he said.

He had the licks to be a session player, but some record producers didn't like his sound.

"Nashville was a whole different world," he said. "Everybody used to play real soft. Country music was real different at that time. I was loud and bluesy. I didn't fit the mold very well."

Then Bob Dylan's producer invited him to play on "Nashville Skyline." He followed with more work on Dylan's "Self-Portrait" and "New Morning" albums.

"You hear how eccentric and shy he is, but I thoroughly enjoyed it," Daniels said of the sessions. "I saw him in a different light than other people. He was in his element."

That work led to other sessions and a stint as a producer for the rock band the Youngbloods. He didn't record his first solo album until 1970. He was 34.

Since then, Daniels and his style of Southern-fried country rock have rolled up gold, platinum and multi-platinum albums galore in a discography that encompasses 23 recordings.

Songs such as "Fire on the Mountain," "The South's Gonna Do It Again" and "Devil Went Down to Georgia" have become country rock staples.

It is a career that he credits to a bit of natural talent and a lot of trying. "An awful lot of what people achieve is desire," he says. "I've seen people with a tremendous amount of natural talent and they don't achieve what they want.

"It's kind of like a muscle: you've got to exercise it."

Also playing at the fair next week will be Collin Raye, a singer who invested more than 15 years in the music business before people began noticing him. Those years included lengthy stays in Portland, Ore., and Reno.

Like Daniels, whose only "regular" job was working in a junkyard for five weeks, Raye has always trained his eye on his musical star.

He grew up in a musical family in Texarkana, Texas, listening to Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard and the Eagles. "My dad played bass and my mom was singer. They always pushed and allowed it to happen," he said of his musical interests.

His big break came with the recording of his first album, "All I Can Be," which included the number one single "Love, Me," a grandfather's emotional reminiscence to his grandson.

The title track to "In This Life," his second album, went to the 20s on the Billboard chart.

Raye likes the blend of rock and country that Nashville is producing now. In concerts he even sings Elton John's "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me."

Raye now lives with his wife and two children in Greenville, Texas. He said he thinks of his career in terms of achieving small goals. "I've succeeded each time I can get one of those goals...Sometimes a big goal in the sky is real elusive.

"My big goal is to spend more time with my kids," he said.

He realizes that he probably pays a price for living in Texas instead of Nashville, but says, "As long as we keep playing good music it should counter that feeling that I'm not a Nashvillean."

The third act headlining the fair is the Gibson/Miller Band, an outfit that draws heavily from the rock 'n' roll (Blue Miller) and pure country (Dave Gibson) roots of its two partners.

Their debut album, "Where There's Smoke," has produced three hit singles, including "Big Heart," "High Rollin'" and "Texas Tattoo."