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Rating: Howdy y’all, my dear loyal readers, this short piece of writing is a personal tribute to a particular artistic/thematic genre, in both musical and literary fields, generally known as southern gothic. The southern gothic, to put it simply, is a representation of the darkest, yet most folkloric, mysterious, fascinating aspects of the so-called Southern States; even though I perceive that part of the world as something very distant from my worldview, in cultural, political, religious, and even climatic/landscape terms, I cannot deny a certain level of fascination, which I will try to explain here through the analysis of this significant musical “sample.”
Redneck/hillbilly icon, Charlie Daniels has crafted an impeccable southern gothic distillate with the signature song of his career; “The Devil Went Down To Georgia,” indeed. Let's start with the songwriting aspect: now, it seems tedious to summarize here the story told by the song, let's just say it presents one of the key features of SG, namely the mix of religion and ancient legends, popular folklore. The use of a “storytelling” style is all the more appropriate and further enhances the charm and charisma of this performance.
From a musical standpoint, there is the guitar, hence there is southern rock, a trend that Our Man has been among the inspirers of and which he has skillfully ridden, but there's also the fiddle, mind you. The fiddle is the quintessential cornerstone of bluegrass, the music of Appalachia, and one of the most intriguing aspects of southern culture is surely the contrast between the coastal areas, the inland rural plains, and precisely the mountains (which would actually be more like hills). The ideal setting for the “facts” narrated in “The Devil Went Down To Georgia” is thus most likely within the northern areas of the state, which are part of Appalachia; coincidentally, North Georgia is also the setting of “Deliverance,” a novel and then film that is a milestone of SG in literary and cinematic fields.
For all these reasons, I give a full five stars to this unlikely challenge between the devil and any old hillbilly, yet endowed with talent and brazen self-esteem. Five stars and a golden violin for Charlie Daniels, five stars for an iconic song that rocks, let's not forget.
The South shall rise again? I strongly doubt it, but let's just say it has many beautiful things to offer.
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