The Volunteer Jam is a sporadically-held concert series headlined by the Charlie Daniels Band, featuring a multitude of musical acts that perform onstage with the band. It was first held on October 4, 1974, at the War Memorial Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee.
Over the years, guests have included Ted Nugent, The Allman Brothers Band, The Marshall Tucker Band, Billy Joel, Garth Brooks, Billy Ray Cyrus, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Tammy Wynette, Roy Acuff, Carl Perkins, Alabama, Don Henley, Barefoot Jerry and many more. Many of those concerts were broadcast live on the radio. The Volunteer Jam on nationwide television included a live broadcast on the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon and a Dick Clark-produced network special. "Volunteer Jam" is also the name of a series of albums released by Charlie Daniels of performances from the late 1970s and early 1980s at the Volunteer Jam shows. Later Volunteer Jams became benefits for Daniels' charity, the Journey Home Project, for soldiers.
October 4, 1974
The very first Volunteer Jam concert was held at War Memorial Auditorium in Nashville. The show was scheduled as a live recording session for two songs for the Fire on the Mountain album, "No Place to Go" and "Orange Blossom Special." The CDB invited some of their friends - Dickey Betts from the Allman Brothers Band and Toy Caldwell, Jerry Eubanks and Paul Riddle from the Marshall Tucker Band - to get together and jam after their set. A tradition was born. "Ain't it good to be alive, and be in Tennessee!" - Charlie Daniels, 1974
September 12, 1975
Officially known as "Volunteer Jam '75," the second Jam was held at the Murphy Center in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Special guests included The Marshall Tucker Band, Dickey Betts and Chuck Leavell from the Allman Brothers Band, Jimmy Hall from Wet Willie and Dru Lombar from Grinderswitch. The concert was filmed and released as Volunteer Jam - Starring The Charlie Daniels Band, the first full-length Southern rock motion picture.
January 8, 1977
Volunteer Jam III was held at Municipal Auditorium in Nashville. Special guests included The Winters Brothers Band, Grinderswitch, Wet Willie, Sea Level, The Sanford-Townsend Band and others. Performances from this Jam were combined with performances from VolJam IV to create a live album, Volunteer Jam III and IV.
January 14, 1978
Volunteer Jam IV was held again at Municipal Auditorium in Nashville. Special guests included The Winters Brothers Band, Grinderswitch, Wet Willie, Sea Level, The Sanford-Townsend Band and others. Performances from this Jam were combined with performances from VolJam III to create a live album, Volunteer Jam III and IV.
January 13, 1979
Volunteer Jam V was held again at Municipal Auditorium in Nashville. This Jam marked the return of Lynyrd Skynyrd to the stage for the first time since the 1977 plane crash that claimed several band members, and the CDB gave the first live performance of a song that would catapult the band to superstardom later that year, "The Devil Went Down to Georgia." Special guests also included Toy Caldwell and George McCorkle from the Marshall Tucker Band, Dobie Gray, The Winters Brothers Band, The Henry Paul Band, Link Wray, and John Prine.
January 12, 1980
Volunteer Jam VI was held again at Municipal Auditorium in Nashville. Special guests included The Winters Brothers Band, Dobie Gray, Grinderswitch, Papa John Creach, The Henry Paul Band, Rufus Thomas, Crystal Gayle, Wet Willie, Bobby Jones & New Life, Louisiana's LeRoux, Ted Nugent and others.
January 17, 1981
Volunteer Jam VII was held again at Municipal Auditorium in Nashville. The CDB's special guests included Ted Nugent, Dobie Gray, Molly Hatchet, Delbert McClinton, Crystal Gayle, Bobby Bare, Jimmy Hall from Wet Willie and others.
January 30, 1982
Volunteer Jam VIII was held again at Municipal Auditorium in Nashville. Special guests included Johnny Lee, George Thorogood, Crystal Gayle, Quarterflash, The Oak Ridge Boys, Dickey Betts, Jimmy C. Newman, Duane Eddy, Roy Acuff and others.
January 22, 1983
Volunteer Jam IX was held again at Municipal Auditorium in Nashville. The CDB's special guests included James Brown, Carl Perkins, Dickey Betts, Grinderswitch, Quarterflash, Johnny Lee, The Winters Brothers Band, Papa John Creach, Woody Herman, Streets, and others.
February 4, 1984
Volunteer Jam X was held again at Municipal Auditorium in Nashville. Special guests included The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Ronnie Milsap, Dobie Gray, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Vince Gill, Louise Mandrell, Amy Grant, The Bellamy Brothers, Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, Crystal Gayle, Streets, Exile, B.J. Thomas, Tammy Wynette and others.
February 2, 1985
Volunteer Jam XI was held again at Municipal Auditorium in Nashville. Special guests included Kris Kristofferson, Tom Wopat, Little Richard, Nicolette Larson, Alabama, Ted Nugent, Bill Medley from The Righteous Brothers, Tommy Shaw from Styx, Lacy J. Dalton, Gail Davies, Eddy Raven, Emmylou Harris, Amy Grant, and others.
July 12, 1986
Volunteer Jam XII was held at the then-new Starwood Amphitheatre in Nashville. Special guests included John Conlee, Dobie Gray, The Judds, Restless Heart, Marty Stuart, The Outlaws, John Schneider, The Allman Brothers Band, Dwight Yoakum and others.
September 6, 1987
Volunteer Jam XIII was held again at Starwood Amphitheatre in Nashville. Special guests included William Lee Golden, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Gary Chapman, Great White and others including Lynyrd Skynyrd. It was Johnny Van Zant's first appearance as Skynyrd frontman, replacing his brother, Ronnie, who died in a 1977 plane crash. The Jam also coincided with the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon, and some of the Jam performances were broadcast on the program.
May 4, 1991
Volunteer Jam XIV was held again at Starwood Amphitheatre in Nashville. Special guests included Tanya Tucker, Bobby Jones & New Life, Travis Tritt, Joe Diffie, Ted Nugent, Jim "Dandy" Mangrum, B.B. King and John Kay & Steppenwolf.
September 20, 1992
Volunteer Jam XV was held again at Starwood Amphitheatre in Nashville. Special guests included Poco, Eddie Rabbitt, Little Feat, The Oak Ridge Boys, Paulette Carlson, Suzy Bogguss, Jo-El Sonnier, Pirates Of The Mississippi, Confederate Railroad, Hal Ketchum, The Desert Rose Band, and others.
October 29, 1996
The last of the original Jams, Volunteer Jam XVI, was held at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville. The Jam was reimagined as an acoustic show and commemorated Daniels' 60th birthday. Special guests included Lorrie Morgan, David Ball, Billy Ray Cyrus, Tracy Byrd, Tracy Lawrence, John Berry, Randy Scruggs and BlackHawk.
May 24, 2014
An unofficial Volunteer Jam concert was held at Fiddler's Green Amphitheatre outside Denver, honoring members of the military, the Red Cross and first responders. Also appearing with the CDB were Craig Campbell, BlackHawk and The Outlaws. The show was broadcast live on AXS TV.
August 12, 2015
The CDB celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Volunteer Jam with an all-star lineup at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. Artists scheduled to perform included Travis Tritt, Montgomery Gentry, Billy Ray Cyrus, The Kentucky Headhunters, The Outlaws, Lee Roy Parnell, Trace Adkins, Colt Ford, Tracy Lawrence, Craig Morgan, Ted Nugent, The Oak Ridge Boys and Michael W. Smith.
November 30, 2016
Daniels celebrated his 80th birthday with a Volunteer Jam on November 30, 2016, with special guests Chris Stapleton, Travis Tritt, Kid Rock, Larry The Cable Guy, 3 Doors Down and Luke Bryan.
March 7, 2018
"Volunteer Jam XX: A Tribute to Charlie" included the CDB, Alison Krauss, Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, Blackberry Smoke, Bobby Bare, Chris Janson, Chuck Leavell, Eddie Montgomery of Montgomery Gentry, Jamey Johnson, Justin Moore, The Oak Ridge Boys, Ricky Skaggs, Alabama, Sara Evans, Lee Brice, Chris Young and Travis Tritt. Was recorded for broadcast on AXS TV, as well as DVD/CD releases.
August 18, 2021
"Volunteer Jam XXI: A Musical Salute to Charlie Daniels." Organised by David Corlew (Daniels' business manager), the first event after his July 6, 2020 death is a benefit for Daniels' charity The Journey Home Project. The event featured the surviving members of the CDB in addition to Alabama, The Marshall Tucker Band, Ricky Skaggs, The Gatlin Brothers, Chris Young, Randy Travis, Travis Tritt, Lorrie Morgan, Exile, Michael W. Smith, Big & Rich, Anthony Castagna, CeCe Winans, Gretchen Wilson, 38 Special, The Allman Betts Band, Cedric Burnside, Jenny Tolman, the Atlanta Rhythm Section, Travis Denning, Johnny Lee, Rhett Akins, Scooter Brown Band, The SteelDrivers, Pure Prairie League and comedian Dusty Slay. SiriusXM‘s Storme Warren hosted.
The Allman Brothers Band were an American rock band formed in Jacksonville, Florida in 1969 by brothers Duane Allman and Gregg Allman, as well as Dickey Betts, Berry Oakley, Butch Trucks (drums), and Jai Johanny "Jaimoe" Johanson (drums). Subsequently, based in Macon, Georgia, the band incorporated elements of blues, jazz, and country music, and their live shows featured jam band-style improvisation and instrumentals.
Southern rock is a subgenre of rock music and a genre of Americana. It developed in the Southern United States from rock and roll, country music, and blues and is focused generally on electric guitars and vocals. Author Scott B. Bomar speculates the term "southern rock" may have been coined in 1972 by Mo Slotin, writing for Atlanta's underground paper, The Great Speckled Bird, in a review of an Allman Brothers Band concert.
Charles Edward Daniels was an American singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Daniels' music encompassed multiple genres in a career spanning five decades, including southern rock, country rock, country, bluegrass, blues and gospel. He was best known for his number-one country hit "The Devil Went Down to Georgia". Much of his output, including all but one of his eight Billboard Hot 100 charting singles, was credited to the Charlie Daniels Band.
Fire on the Mountain is the fifth studio album by Charlie Daniels and the second as the Charlie Daniels Band, released in 1974, appearing on the record label Kama Sutra Records, then later in 1976 by Epic Records. Most of the tracks on the album are studio recordings, while the last two songs are live performances, recorded at the War Memorial Auditorium, Nashville, Tennessee on October 4, 1974. This album was certified Platinum by the RIAA on January 22, 1992.
The Starwood Amphitheatre was the primary outdoor music venue in the Nashville, Tennessee area from 1986 to 2006. It was owned by Live Nation and had a capacity of 17,137. It had previously been owned by SFX Entertainment and Clear Channel Worldwide, both predecessors of Live Nation Entertainment. It was demolished in 2007 and the site, as of 2021, has not yet been redeveloped. It was not affiliated with the now-defunct Starwood hospitality company.
Charles Alfred Leavell is an American musician and forestry author. A member of the Allman Brothers Band throughout their commercial zenith in the 1970s, he subsequently became a founding member of the band Sea Level. He has served as the principal touring keyboardist and de facto musical director of The Rolling Stones since 1982. As a session musician, Leavell has performed on every Rolling Stones studio album released since 1983 with the exception of Bridges to Babylon (1997). He has also toured and recorded with Eric Clapton, George Harrison, David Gilmour, Gov't Mule and John Mayer.
August Jam was an outdoor concert held on Saturday, August 10, 1974, at the Charlotte Motor Speedway outside of Charlotte, North Carolina, in the United States. The concert promoter was Kaleidoscope Productions and it was sponsored by radio stations WAYS and WROQ. The concert featured The Allman Brothers Band, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Foghat, Black Oak Arkansas, The Marshall Tucker Band, The Ozark Mountain Daredevils, PFM, Grinderswitch, and others. The Eagles were booked to play, but canceled. It was the largest concert ever held in the state of North Carolina and one of the largest in the U.S. at that time, with an estimated attendance in excess of 300,000.
Southern Rock Gold is a two-disc greatest hits compilation album released in 2005. It features 32 of the greatest hits from Southern rock, many of which are from the Universal Music Group catalogue. The liner notes on the CD consist of a 9 page article written in September 2005 by Scott Schinder about Southern rock with emphasis on a behind-the-scenes look at the songs and groups featured in the compilation. The article itself is followed by a list of the songs, including each song's author, recording date and the album it was originally released on.
Brothers of the Road is the eighth studio album, and tenth album overall, by the rock group the Allman Brothers Band. Released in 1981, it is the band's sole album without drummer Jai Johanny Johanson, the last to feature bassist David Goldflies and guitarist Dan Toler, and the only one to feature drummer David Toler. The song "Straight from the Heart" was the group's third and final Top 40 hit. It was also the first Allman Brothers album to not feature an instrumental song.
Grinderswitch was a southern rock band formed near Macon, Georgia in 1973. Formed from a collaboration of musicians through word of mouth and connections to already established bands and musicians, Grinderswitch became a known act during the peak of the southern rock era. They recorded two albums for Capricorn Records in the mid-1970s, but never achieved the widespread recognition enjoyed by some of the label's other artists, such as The Allman Brothers Band and Marshall Tucker Band. In the UK they are perhaps best known for their recording "Pickin' the Blues", which was used for many years by the disc jockey John Peel as the theme tune for his BBC radio shows.
Paul Hornsby is an American musician and record producer who has produced gold and platinum records for artists including the Charlie Daniels Band, The Marshall Tucker Band, and Wet Willie.
Curated and presented by Grammy Award-winning vocalist-songwriter and revered guitarist Warren Haynes, the Christmas Jam is a one-of-a-kind music marathon. Since its inception in 1988, the concert has provided an opportunity for the performing artists, audience and the local community to give back during the holiday season. Over the past 18 years, Haynes - an Asheville native - has worked closely with the Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity.
Johnny Neel is an American vocalist, songwriter, and musician based in Nashville, Tennessee. He is best known for his songwriting, stage, and being a member of the Allman Brothers Band and the Dickey Betts Band.
Deuces is an album by the Charlie Daniels Band. All the songs are duets with other country artists. It was released on October 9, 2007. This album is due to be re-released on July 16, 2021 with the title "Duets" as a Walmart exclusive and features 6 additional tracks.
Volunteer Jam/ Classic Live Performances: Volume one is a compilation album of live performances from previous Volunteer Jam concerts and albums by American musician Charlie Daniels.
Volunteer Jam/Classic Live Performances: Volume Two is a compilation album of live performances by the Charlie Daniels Band and various artists. It is the sequel to Volunteer Jam/Classic Live Performances: Volume One and is a compilation of performances from previous Volunteer Jam concerts and albums. The other artists featured on this album are Wet Willie, Dobie Gray, Jimmy Hall, L.A. Reflection Section, Ted Nugent, Louisiana's LeRoux, Willie Nelson, Delbert McClinton, and Al Kooper. Volunteer Jam/Classic Live Performances: Volume Two was released on June 1, 1999, courtesy of Blue Hat records.
James "Barry" Waldrep is an American Bluegrass, Jam Band, Americana instrumentalist, songwriter, composer and record producer. Main instrument is acoustic guitar, but also plays electric guitar, mandolin and banjo. Waldrep co-founded the bluegrass/jam band Rollin' in the Hay in July 1993. The band was based in Birmingham, Alabama, and formed as a side project. Waldrep was also a full time member of the Birmingham band Telluride. Rollin' In The Hay soon became a full-time band touring the Jam Band circuit of festivals and college campuses across the country until May 2009. The band produced 7 CDs and performed over 300 dates per year for 16 years.
Down in Texas '71 is a live album by the Allman Brothers Band. It was recorded on September 28, 1971 at the Austin Municipal Auditorium in Austin, Texas. It was released on March 26, 2021.
The Fox Box is an eight-CD live album by the Allman Brothers Band. It contains the complete three-concert run recorded on September 24, 25, and 26, 2004 at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta. It was released on March 24, 2017.