Charlie Daniels looking to give audiences their money’s worth

The reason Charlie Daniels has been around so long is the same reason he was impersonated in "American Superstars" for so long: He's entertaining.

You may not be as familiar with his new anti-letting-Afghanistan-become a-Vietnam-like quagmire single, "Let 'Em Win or Bring 'Em Home" as you are with "The Devil Went Down to Georgia." But it doesn't matter, says the pioneering Southern rocker, as long as you put on a good show.

"That's the thing you learn if you have any sense. When you get into the business, you find out you need to be an entertainer if you're going to stay around," says Daniels, who plays The Orleans today and Saturday.

You can get by for a while if you have a hit song and "look good in a pair of tight jeans." However, "when all that goes and you start hanging over your belt line, if you can entertain, you'll be around.

"See, I've never had that tight-jeans thing," he adds.

Daniels' Vegas avatar, Johnny Potash, was a "Superstars" constant until the show closed this year, watching his castmates go from the Spice Girls to Lady Gaga over the years. The real Daniels celebrated his 75th birthday at the Grand Ole Opry in October, saluted by stars such as Clint Black who grew up listening to the fiddler.

Daniels' musical journey went from the 1973 novelty hit "Uneasy Rider" -- in which a long-hair has to talk his way out of "a redneck-lookin' joint called the Dewdrop Inn" -- to his current "What This World Needs is a Few More Rednecks": "a little more respect for the Lord and the law and the workin' man."

"Maybe I've changed," Daniels says, but he also notes: "I live in a redneck society. Always have. That's the people I understand best, the people I've always been around and the people I tend to write about."

Daniels continues his streak of playing most, if not every, National Finals Rodeo week since it came to Las Vegas in 1985.

"If I get to the point where I don't think I can give people their money's worth anymore, I'm not gonna do it anymore," he says. "I've got too much of my life invested in trying to give people their money's worth. If I can't bring it myself, I won't be there."

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.