Already skilled on guitar, fiddle, banjo, and mandolin, he formed a rock 'n' roll band and hit the road. As a teenager, Daniels moved to the small town of Gulf, Chatham County, North Carolina. In 2016, he shared memories of his youth and baseball in Wilmington when he wrote the foreword for a book on the Tobacco State League. Daniels was born October 28, 1936, in Wilmington, North Carolina, and raised on a musical diet that included Pentecostal gospel, local bluegrass bands, and the rhythm & blues and country music from Nashville's 50,000-watt AM radio stations WLAC and WSM.