Please school me on DAVID ALLAN COE

finelikewine

Somebody described him to me as the outlaw of country music that Johnny Cash always pretended to be. I know next to nothing about this guy. Can give me some information about him and tell what song i should check out?thanks in advance!

Swayze

Johnny Rebel - The unofficial anthem of the KKK

Rockadelic

Coe is from Ohio and spent time in prison during the 60's....some say for murder. His early LP's on SSS International are top notch Outlaw Country......and his later major label stuff has some great tunes....."You Never Call Me By My Name" is one of the greatest country songs recorded post 1970.

However.....

He is also known for 3 "Underground" LP's that were sold at Biker Rallies....they are more rock than country and are X-Rated and racist as hell.....some of the nastiest stuff ever recorded. I'm certain that sound clips would not be welcome here(or most places).



More recently he's gotten some shine from Kid Rock.

LaserWolf

Pickwick has a story from his youth about the kkk lps.

I think he wrote or sang, Up Against The Wall Redneck Mothers, which was a big anthem when I lived in Oklahoma.

You Never Even Call Me By My Name Was Steve Goodman's attempt to write the perfect country song:

DAC Rejected it as the perfect country song forcing Goodman to add a verse:

(spoken by D.A.C.)
Well a friend of mine named Steve Goodman wrote that song, and he
told me it was the perfect country and western song. Well, I
wrote 'im back a letter and told him it was not the perfect
country and western song 'cause he hadn't said anything at all
about mama or trains or trucks or prison or gettin' drunk. Well,
he sat down and wrote another verse to this song and he sent it
to me and after readin' it I realized that my friend had written
the perfect country and western song. I felt obliged to include
it on this album. The last verse goes like this here:

Well I was drunk the day my mama got outta prison
And I went to pick 'er up in the rain
But before I could get to the station in my pickup..truck,
She got runned over by a damned old train.

Bottom line, Coe is good, no better than Jerry Jeff Walker or a bunch of other guys who rode the outlaw country wave.

Pick up his records when you see them.

Birdman9

Pick up his records when you see them.

I think his 'Greatest Hits' has the essential anthem 'D-R-U-N-K', as in, "How do you spell relief? I get D-R-U-N-K".

Once you get over the fringe, country-Outlaw image, it's just good solid country stuff, as Wolf points out. Johnny Paycheck, Waylon, Merle Haggard and others were all doing equally entertaining gritty country stuff at points in their careers that matches or exceeds DAC.

SoulOnIce

Pick up his records when you see them.

I think I would rather spend my country music dollar on
those who didn't make a series of explicit and intentionally
racist albums.

LaserWolf

Pick up his records when you see them.

I think I would rather spend my country music dollar on
those who didn't make a series of explicit and intentionally
racist albums.

The wiki page is a good read.

Says he is not Johnny Rebel.
Says he spent a lot of time in jail, but they cast doubt on his claim that he killed a man and was on death row.

Coe was in and out of reform schools, correction centers and prisons from the age of 9. According to his publicity campaigns, he spent time on death row for killing an inmate who demanded oral sex. After receiving a conflicting account from prison officials, a Rolling Stone magazine reporter questioned Coe about the claim. In any event, he was incarcerated at the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield OH (not the location of Ohio's death row at the time) and was paroled in 1967.[1]

Coe recorded two albums in 1978 and 1982 containing racist and misogynistic lyrics of extreme vulgarity and racial crudity: "Nothing Sacred" and "Underground Album." Also available is a best of the X-rated albums compilation entitled "18 X-Rated Hits". Coe has defended the songs (such as one deriding an adulterous wife who leaves her white husband and children for a black man as a "Nigger Fucker" in a song of that name) as bawdy fun which never made him much money as well as pointing out that his drummer at the time was black. This has also led to confusion regarding offensive works by other artists, especially Johnny Rebel, whose songs are often mistakenly attributed to Coe. [2][3]

Coe's second album, the psychedelic concept album Requiem for a Harlequin, contains many strong anti-racist and pro-civil rights statements. One track describes the birth of soul music in a celebratory style; others are furious rants against the KKK and what he calls "the asphalt jungle". Another track entitled "F*ck Anita Bryant" rants against Anita Bryant for her opposition to homosexuality.

Coe was a member of the 1 percenter biker club, Outlaws MC.

I always picks up Louis Farakkahn lps too.
But I never pick up Nazi lps and wouldn't pick up Coe's racists records.
I do occasionally pick up records by racists xian preachers, or kkk/John Birch Society records. But I don't like having them around and dump them as quick as possible.

But DAC was not an active hate monger.
He made deliberately over the top offensive records that ironically were embraced by the people he was laughing at.

pickwick33

In 1998, we compiled a David Allan Coe record guide in Roctober magazine, and here it is: http://www.roctober.com/roctober/greatness/coe.html

My contributions can be seen under the pen name "JP."

The record guide was back-ended to an interview that me, Bosco (no last name), and Jake Austen did with Coe backstage at the House of Blues. While he graciously told all about his past, a porno movie played silently on the overhead TV...

AKallDay

oh shit i thought you meant the david (daevid) allen from Gong and Soft Machine




he's imo

that sweater vest alone....! i don't think anyone was quite ready

Horseleech

oh shit i thought you meant the david (daevid) allen from Gong and Soft Machine




he's imo

that sweater vest alone....! i don't think anyone was quite ready

Not to mention the gold-top glissando.

LaserWolf

In 1998, we compiled a David Allan Coe record guide in Roctober magazine, and here it is: http://www.roctober.com/roctober/greatness/coe.html

My contributions can be seen under the pen name "JP."

The record guide was back-ended to an interview that me, Bosco (no last name), and Jake Austen did with Coe backstage at the House of Blues. While he graciously told all about his past, a porno movie played silently on the overhead TV...

Hey! you called me a non-country fan/fratboy in one of your reviews.

pickwick33

In 1998, we compiled a David Allan Coe record guide in Roctober magazine, and here it is: http://www.roctober.com/roctober/greatness/coe.html

My contributions can be seen under the pen name "JP."

The record guide was back-ended to an interview that me, Bosco (no last name), and Jake Austen did with Coe backstage at the House of Blues. While he graciously told all about his past, a porno movie played silently on the overhead TV...

Hey! you called me a non-country fan/fratboy in one of your reviews.

In the words of Ray Charles,"What'd I Say?"

erewhon

This is a good introduction: