Tennessee's Charlie Daniels Band is another good advertisement for Southern music. (In fact one song here is just that -- a roll call of their regional compatriots.) As can be expected, fiddler/guitarist/vocalist Daniels's sextet draws much from the bluesier side of the Allmans, particularly on the live and lengthy "No Place to Go." No individual genius lurks here, but collectively they stir up arrangements often spicier than their models.

Original album advertising art. Click image for larger view.

An exception is the jam on the enclosed, bonus 45-rpm record: The addition of Richard Betts and part of the Marshall Tucker Band only makes for a crowded sound. Aside from the rollicking "Trudy," Fire on the Mountain's finest moments come softly. The ease of "Long Haired Country Boy" and especially the gentle celebration of "Georgia," a true Southern jewel, reveal the heart of the Charlie Daniels Band.

- Charley Walters, Rolling Stone, 3/27/75.

"Southern rock at its best" cheer longhaired country boys and girls of this snappy old favorite, which crosses the Mason-Dixon line to R&R and features none other than the Allman Brothers' Dickey Betts on guitar. Though his biggest hit, "The Devil Went Down to Georgia," was still four years down the road, this was the record that made the bearded fiddler a star. * * * *

- Zagat Survey Music Guide - 1,000 Top Albums of All Time, 2003.

A great slice of country-fried boogie.

- Dan Heilman, The All-Music Guide to Rock, 1995.

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