David Allan Coe, legendary country music songwriter, has passed away at 86 years old. DAC was the consummate outlaw, serving prison time and name dropping Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, and Willie Nelson as friends. While there's truth to all of that, he never shied away from a good story getting in the way of the truth, and his labels and promoters were on board for the ride.
He was a character on and off the stage and remembered for some amazing songwriting, including "Take This Job and Shove It" (made famous by Johnny Paycheck) as well as his own versions of “You Never Even Called Me by My Name,” "Longhaired Redneck," and "Willie, Waylon, and Me." I loved his version of "Please Come to Boston," one of my favorite songs ever, originally by Dave Loggins.
Coe's legacy isn't limited to his ability to craft a great song and nudge his way into the outlaw country landscape. He released a series of sexually explicit and racially offensive songs that he'd be tethered to for the duration of his life, most likely, and appropriately preventing him from ever seeing significant mainstream success. There's no way to sugar-coat it – they were terrible. He scoffed them off as parodies, but their rife XXX and blatantly racist lyrics left little room for forgiveness, and that's not something he could just brush off while still expecting the respect of his peers, in public, anyway. These themes rarely made their way into his mainstream music, but the shadow remained, and any mention of Coe will at least recall this dark chapter.
Complex and deep, talented and unrepentant, David Allan Coe certainly left his mark. It's hard to imagine what might have been had he kept on a less-controversial and offensive path throughout his career.
Jeremy Porter lives near Detroit, fronts the rock and roll band Jeremy Porter And The Tucos, and plays acoustic shows all over the place. Follow him and them on Facebook to read his road blog about their adventures on the dive-bar circuit.
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