David Allan Coe, whose rough-hewn life and uncompromising music made him one of country’s most enduring outlaws, died April 29th in the hospital after a stay in intensive care. He was 86. The exact cause of death has not been confirmed.
Born in Akron, Ohio in 1939, Coe spent much of his youth cycling in and out of reform schools and correctional facilities, first sent away at age nine. By his own account, one he cultivated carefully and not always accurately, those years were violent and formative. He claimed to have killed a man in prison while on death row, a story that was later debunked, though the truth of his incarceration was hard enough: he spent the better part of two decades behind bars before his final release in 1967.
He arrived in Nashville with little more than a guitar and a mythology already in progress. For a time he lived in a hearse parked outside the Ryman Auditorium, busking on the street and pitching songs to anyone who would listen. The city eventually listened. Tanya Tucker took his ballad “Would You Lay With Me (In a Field of Stone)” to number one in 1973, and Coe signed with Columbia Records the following year, releasing his debut studio album, The Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy, in 1974. Johnny Paycheck recorded his “Take This Job and Shove It” in 1977, sending it to the top of the country charts and cementing Coe’s reputation as one of Nashville’s sharpest contrarian songwriting voices in the game.
His own recording career ran parallel to his songwriting success, if rarely as commercially tidy. Songs like “You Never Even Called Me by My Name,” “The Ride,” “Longhaired Redneck,” and “Mona Lisa Lost Her Smile” became country standards, embraced by fans who recognized in Coe something the mainstream industry never quite knew what to do with — a performer who seemed constitutionally incapable of playing it safe. He wore rhinestone suits and motorcycle boots, rode onto stages and into legend, and inserted himself so thoroughly into the outlaw country narrative that it became difficult to separate the man from the persona he had spent a lifetime constructing.
His later years brought further controversy and collaboration in equal measure. In the late 1970s and early 1980s he released a pair of explicit underground albums that drew sharp criticism for their content. In the 2000s he recorded a country-metal project with members of Pantera, Rebel Meets Rebel, that became a cult favorite. He remained a working musician into his final years, never entirely leaving the road.
His wife, Kimberly, described him simply as “one of the best singers, songwriters, and performers of our time.” He is survived by her and their five children: Tyler Mahan Coe, Tanya Montana Coe, Shelli Coe, Shyanne Coe, and Carla Coe.
