David Allan Coe, Outlaw Country Legend, Dies at 86
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- David Allan Coe died around 5pm on Wednesday at age 86, with his wife Kimberly Hastings Coe confirming the news to Rolling Stone; a representative told People the cause of death was not disclosed.
- Coe wrote "Take This Job and Shove It," a 1977 hit for Johnny Paycheck, and "Would You Lay With Me (in a Field of Stone)," a 1974 hit for Tanya Tucker, and was the first country singer to record "Tennessee Whiskey" — a song later made a genre standard by George Jones and Chris Stapleton.
- Coe served time in an Ohio prison from 1963 to 1967 for possession of burglary tools and recorded his debut album Penitentiary Blues from songs he wrote behind bars, though he told reporters he avoided leaning on prison as subject matter to differentiate himself from Merle Haggard.
- Coe released two R-rated albums — 1978's Nothing Sacred and 1982's Underground Album, sold via biker magazines — containing songs later criticized as racist, homophobic, and sexually explicit; he told Billboard in 2001 that Shel Silverstein had convinced him to record them, something he came to regret.
- Coe was ordered in 2016 to pay the IRS more than $980,000 in restitution for obstructing the tax agency and was sentenced to three years' probation, with court documents showing he earned income from at least 100 concerts yearly from 2008 through 2013 without filing or paying taxes.
- Coe's final record, released in 2006, was a collaboration with Dimebag Darrell and other former members of Pantera, reflecting the cross-genre fanbase he cultivated among bikers, metalheads, and outlaw country loyalists.
Why it matters: Coe was a Nashville outsider whose songwriting — from a working-class anthem to a now-standard country ballad — outlasted his reputation for controversy. His death at 86 closes a chapter of outlaw country whose trail runs from 1960s prison cells through a Pantera crossover to a six-figure IRS bill, and the songs he handed to other artists will keep generating royalties for decades.
Ask SkimNews
