On Aug. 25, 1979, Charlie Daniels was undoubtedly doing plenty of celebrating. It was on this day 35 years ago that the singer earned his first No.1 hit with his single 'The Devil Went Down to Georgia.'

The song, which was the debut single from his 'Million Mile Reflections' album, also became a gold single for Daniels. Ironically, the hit tune almost didn't make it onto the record.

“We had gone in and rehearsed, written and recorded the music for our ‘Million Mile Reflections’ album, and all of a sudden we said, ‘We don’t have a fiddle song,’” Daniels recalls. “I don’t know why we didn’t discover that, but we went out, and we took a couple of days’ break from the recording studio, went into a rehearsal studio, and I just had this idea: ‘the Devil went down to Georgia.’"

'The Devil Went Down to Georgia' earned the hitmaker a Grammy award for Best Country Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. He also won a CMA Award for Single of the Year and was nominated for an ACM Award in the same category.

Daniels included the song on several of his compilation albums, including ‘A Decade of Hits’ in 1983, ‘Super Hits’ in 1994, ‘Fiddle Fire: 25 Years of the CDB’ in 1998 and 2006′s ’16 Biggest Hits.’

Download ‘The Devil Went Down to Georgia’ here.

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