Photo from Melissa Miller
Recent rumblings throughout certain quarters of the country music blogosphere have evidenced David Allan Coe to be, well, difficult. But, his reputation as a piece of work goes back to his 1970s and ’80s periods as a radio mainstay, where resonant love songs and meta-commentary on his genre released on a major label would be interspersed with smutty and rancorous indie work that gives the impression of an unrepentant, racist, sexist jerk. His apparent lack of an internal filter contributes to Coe being as much a troubled soul as he is an artistic treasure. He may be the only Country Music Hall of Fame contender to play “Austin City Limits” and be interviewed by pornographer Al Goldstein on Manhattan public access cable.
His show last Friday at Turner Hall Ballroom seems to be typical of his performing history following his rib-cracking car accident last year and the professional weirdness—what Coe has labeled an abandonment by everyone but his current wife—that followed his sixth marriage. Sitting down to play his electric guitar, he was accompanied by a drummer who looked to have been a roadie earlier in the evening and a blind keyboardist who intermittently plied his talent. His other half, Kimberly, came out not long after the show began to sing occasional background vocals and, more frequently, play tambourine.
Coe began with what first seemed to be a medley of two songs. But the unlikely, if melodically apt, pairing of John Prine’s “Hello In There” and Dobie Gray’s “Loving Arms” wended into an extended stroll through bits and pieces of songs mostly by other folks. Included therein were a mini-set of numbers popularized by Coe’s fellow country outlaw, Waylon Jennings, current star Toby Keith and something of a David & Kimberly duet on the Kris Kristofferson song that gave Sammi Smith an early-’70s pop crossover, “Help Me Make It Through The Night.” Amid all that, he saw fit to include portions of a couple of his own potent romantic laments “She Used To Love Me A Lot” and “Mona Lisa Lost Her Smile.”
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Later, Coe saw fit to assay songs he had written for contemporaries. His craggy, declamatory baritone fit the tenderness of the Tanya Tucker smash “Would You Lay with Me (In a Field of Stone)” as it does the bruised arrogance of Johnny Paycheck’s signature hit “Take This Job and Shove It.” A more recent number he gave to Kid Rock, “Single Father,” is sensitive as his adaptation of an X-rated limerick about a gentleman from Nantucket (he’s from Kentucky now) was crude. A powerful story song based on his vehicular mishap made up for some of his lesser, earlier moments.
Oddly—or perhaps because he has tired of performing it—left unsung was Coe’s funniest charting single, his spin on Steve Goodman’s “You Never Even Called Me By My Name.” The opening act that once performed behind Coe and Paycheck, Confederate Railroad, made up for some of the headliner’s humor deficit. The yuks heard in some of their run of success during the first half of the ’90s may derive from sub-“Hee Haw” Southern rube stereotyping, but at least, unlike today’s breed of country’s bro-ism shite meisters, they’re self-aware enough to be in on the joke. And though “Elvis and Andy” and “Queen Of Memphis” play for laughs, they could also pluck heartstrings with sentiment to spare, as with “Jesus and Mama” and “Daddy Never Was The Cadillac Kind.” Lack of flash appeal and stage charisma be damned, they displayed their breadth further by rocking with political conviction on Steve Earle co-write “Good Ol’ Boy (Getting’ Tough)” and reprising elements of the line dance remix of their ode to questionable girlfriends, “Trashy Women.”
