David Allan Coe, the pioneer of outlaw country, has died, aged 86.
Some will remember the Akron, Ohio born hell-raiser for his hits, tracks such as You Never Even Called Me by My Name, a jukebox stalwart in bars south of the Mason-Dixon, or The Ride, that poetic McCarthy-esque number from 1983 comeback album, Castles in the Sand.
Some will remember him as a gifted songwriter and storyteller. Johnny Paycheck would; it was Coe who wrote Take This Job and Shove It. Though some forgot, and that irked Coe. In 1980 he recorded his own version, a country diss track that took aim at Paycheck. The Dead Kennedys covered the original, offering evidence that Coe’s songwriting could resonate far beyond the country scene.
Article continues below“What we are to heavy metal rock and roll, he is to country and western,” said Dimebag, speaking to Guitar World in May 2000. “I was just going to see him play, but I met up with that cat and ended up shooting the shit with him for two hours backstage.
“I had a copy of our third home video on me, and I gave it to him… He called me up a day later and said, ‘Hey, Dime. It’s David Allan Coe. I’m gambling, and I just hit $50,000 on a slot machine. I want you to play on my new record.’”
“That took the whole summer, because we were mostly partying and hanging out,” recalled Dime.
Others will recall Coe's hard-scrabble origin story, his troubled upbringing, reform school, and a rap sheet that saw him spend much time in his earlier years behind bars, and then all the myths that came out of that.
And then there were the controversies, the accusations of racism borne from lyrics that were never PC but oftentimes flat-out offensive – accusations that Coe faced apologetically, arguing that the context mattered.
Coe had some unlikely collaborations. A young Warren Haynes got his break touring with him. It was his first serious pro gig. Haynes didn’t know what he was getting into.
“When I got the offer to join his band, I didn’t know anything about him,” said Haynes, speaking to MusicRadar in 2025. “I didn’t know any of his music, and I didn’t know anything about his lifestyle. I was 19, maybe I’d just turned 20, and I thought it was an opportunity for me to do something beyond what I had been doing, which was just regional stuff in my hometown. It was such an eye-opening experience to say the least.”
It was invaluable. Haynes stuck with it. But he admitted that being on the road with Coe was “frightening”.
“It was just the whole scene was crazy,” explained Haynes. “I had never been around anything like that – it was all bikers and it was just a much crazier environment than I had ever experienced before, and it was a lot for me to absorb. But it was an opportunity for me, musically and from a career standpoint, so I’d just grin and bear it!”
Haynes learned a lot of life lessons on that tour. But Coe gets another footnote in music history here because it was he who introduced Haynes to Dickey Betts and Gregg Allman.
Coe says his early run-ins with the law as a minor shaped his entire persona. His father was an alcoholic. There was violence at home.
“When I was nine years old, I was placed in institutions, and for the biggest part of my life, from that point on, I was in institutions,” he said, in an interview on the 2003 live DVD Live at Billy Bob’s Texas. “Being in institutions at that young age, I had to be very tough. A lot of people were always saying to me, ‘Smile.’ I say, I don’t smile. It ain’t what I do.”
Despite his outlaw country persona, the mythologizing of his trials and tribulations with law enforcement, his no-apologies for those offended by – Coe longed to be accepted in mainstream circles.
“I’ve been a member of the Country Music Association for 35 years,” he said. “I’ve never even been asked to be a presenter on the award show. I got a Grammy Award for Take This Job and Shove It; they sent it to me to mail. I’ve just never been accepted. They’ve always been afraid of me.”
