Charlie Daniels: Hell on Violins

Charlie Daniels: Hell On Violins

by Lew Sethics

Now we all know Charlie Daniels for his fine tune “The Devil Went Down To Georgia”, and we all agree that there is a damn good fiddle solo in that there song.

But it seems that for anyone born north of the Mason-Dixon Line that is pretty much the limit of Charlie Daniels’ influence on music.  I don’t know about the rebs, but that’s it for Charlie up North.

So one wonders what the producers of the commercial featuring Charlie Daniels were thinking when they aired a shortie of him sawing some poor guy’s violin into fiddledom on TV.

Now I’m not psychic, and I don’t have (very many) visions, but I imagine the scenario at the fine restaurant went something like this:

Tony Barone-“Yeah Yeah, it’s a Stradivarius, but I need to keep this little thing between us, see?  Nobody can know what you got, or where you got it.”

Castellano Benemanga, first violinist for a notable symphony orchestra- “I’m-a just play for-a  myself.  Atta home.   Nobody know.  MMMMMMM. Primavera.  mm You gotta let-a me see!”

Tony reaches down and puts the hard violin case on the chair next to him.  He opens the case shows the contents to Castellano, whose eyes are as big as saucers with lust for the holy object, hands sweating impatiently in anticipation.

“This violin has been sheltered from the world like a valuable princess” says Tony Barone “She has never felt the wind, the rain, or the touch of rough hands.  She is taken out and played only on special occasions, which are logged in this here journal.  The case is bomb proof and has GPS built in.  This violin has been in perfect tune for three hundred years, and has only been touched by masters.”

“Lemme…” groped Castellano, reaching for the instrument with chubby fingers.

Just then Charlie Daniels comes walking through the fine establishment, just having finished some hog maws and fatback, fingers greasy as the axle of an International Harvester, satisfied smile plastered on his face from a few boilermakers. 

“Oh, looky here!” he says and grabs the Stradivarius and the bow from Tony and stomps out a four four time with his bootheeled spurs while he proceeds to dehair the bow on a set of three-hundred dollar strings .

Everyone within earshot cringes as the old white haired fool saws away at lightning speed, deigning not to enter into musical notes, but keeping the strings screeching somewhere just beneath bat opera, Gotterdammerung, maybe.

“That’s how it’s done” Daniels brags as he hands the torn bow and greasy violin back to Tony, who makes a mental note to kill him later.

Daniels chuckles and stomps his way loudly out to his pickup truck, totally unaware of being totally obnoxious, and drives off into the sunset.  YippeTiYo, TiYay.

Castellano is gone, like the wind.  Hey, that sounds pretty good.  Gone, like the wind.

Tony has to get the Stradivarius maintenanced, and he’s stuck with the check, which he pays for with a stolen credit card, so he leaves a generous tip.

Anyway, we come full circle to the beginning and the end.

We are at the mercy of the producers, who can subject us to ear–bleeding volume bursts of attention-grabbing two-note mayhem, designed to shock us out of our sleepy inattentive television watching stupors.  That they can get a musician to jump on the bandwagon and play the moron is a sign of their power.

Be afraid.  Be very afraid.   

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