Doug Gray Shares 50-Year Friendship With Charlie Daniels

Marshall Tucker Band frontman Doug Gray was as close as brothers with Charlie Daniels over the decades, and he's opening up about his 50-year friendship with the man he calls "the broad shoulders of all of us" after his death at the age of 83.

The friends met as young musicians in Nashville, and over the years, as Daniels built a career with the Charlie Daniels Band and Gray headed up the Marshall Tucker Band, they played more gigs on the bill together with each other than with any other acts they worked with.

CDB's classic hits include "The Devil Went Down to Georgia," "Long Haired Country Boy," "Uneasy Rider," "Simple Man" and more. Marshall Tucker Band are best known for a string of hits that includes "Can't You See," "Heard It in a Love Song" and others. The two bands were slated to tour together again in 2020 on their joint Fire on the Mountain Tour, which took its name from Charlie Daniels Band's platinum-selling 1974 album Fire on the Mountain, as well as Marshall Tucker Band's 1978 hit song by the same title.

Slated to launch in April, the tour was initially delayed due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Daniels had planned to get back on the road later in 2020, but the country icon didn't live to see those plans come to fruition; he died on July 6 at the age of 83 after suffering a hemorrhagic stroke, and Gray talked to Taste of Country by phone to share his fondest memories of his longtime friendship with the beloved musician.