Charlie Daniels lived by a simple code that emphasized faith, family, country and a strong work ethic, and he discussed how those beliefs shaped his life in one of the final interviews of his lifetime.

Daniels sat down with Big & Rich singer John Rich for one of his very last recorded interviews, which took place at Daniels' Twin Pines Ranch in rural Tennessee on June 16. The spot was filmed for Rich's Fox Nation show, The Pursuit! With John Rich, and it was originally slated to air next month, but was bumped up to air on Friday (July 10) after Daniels died on Monday (July 6) at the age of 83.

Daniels stressed the importance of his Christian faith in the interview. That served as his anchor through all of his various tribulations, he told Rich, including a bout with cancer and the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

"If I didn’t have the Lord in my life, I couldn’t — I’d be — I don’t know where I’d be. I really don’t know where I’d be," Daniels acknowledged. "And there’s been times in my life when I did not have the Lord in my life, and things would — bad things would happen, and I wouldn’t know — you know, you don’t know where to go, you don’t know what to do. But I learned what my motto nowadays is, we try to walk by faith and not by sight."


Rich's show is dedicated to successful people in various fields sharing how the pursuit of happiness that's afforded us as Americans has shaped their lives, and Daniels told him that he enjoyed a variety of leisure activities, ranging from eating to guns and hunting to fishing and travel. The patriotic country legend attributed the freedom that we have as Americans as central to all of those pursuits.

"Freedom and pursuit of happiness go hand in hand together," he observed. "Freedom to worship any way you want to. Freedom to go anywhere you want to, do anything you want to, to say anything you want to. Right, wrong, indifferent, whatever. People don’t have to listen to you, but you’ve got a right to say it."

"That’s the pursuit of happiness. Being the person to reach your potential and be the person that God designed you that you could reach your potential to be," he asserted. "That, to me, is the pursuit of happiness. God, family, country, work. That’s my four principles."

Daniels also detailed the early years of his career and the hard work that went into becoming successful in the interview, which is available on Friday via the Fox Nation streaming service.



Daniels died on Monday (July 6) at the age of 83 after suffering a hemorrhagic stroke. His funeral is set to take place on Friday at 11AM CT, and it will stream online.  His family asks that in lieu of flowers, fans make a donation to the Journey Home Project, which Daniels and his manager, David Corlew, founded in 2014 to help address the needs of U.S. veterans.

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