David Allen Coe Biography
If there’s ever been a way to describe DAC, it has got to be his ability to defy categorization. With nearly three decades of following his musical muse wherever it’s led, this outlaw has crossed the panorama of American roots music.
As well as being a singer, songwriter, guitarist, David is also a magician, deep sea treasure hunter and movie star. His movies include “Stagecoach”, “The Last Days of Frank and Jessie James”. “Lady Grey”, “Buckstone County Prison” and “Take This Job and Shove It” to mention a few. David signed with SUN Records in 1968 and recorded his first album “Penitentiary Blues”, all songs that he wrote in prison. In 1973 Columbia Records bought David’s contract from Sun and he recorded his first album “The Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy” several years before Glen Campbell had a hit with the song “Rhinestone Cowboy”.
David is a star in every sense of the word, and someone to look up to and learn from. The term “living legend” may be overused to the point of cliche, but in the case of David, it fits like a glove. Hailed by Country Music Magazine as “..one of the most singularly fascinating and enigmatic figures to carve a niche in ‘70s and ‘80s country music,” Coe continues to cut his own bold and singular path through the world of popular music. David is a man comfortable in all kinds of music–provided that music has the unbridled passion of a man committed to life without limits. Still while it’s hard to pin the man down in any one place, space or time the people who’ve been turning out for David’s legendary live performances over the last decade have elevated him to cult hero status. Because of his ability to capture their emotions they have embraced David’s music and used it as their own rallying cry against the status quo.
As each new generation of Rednecks Kickers, Pickers, Preppies, Skinheads, Deadheads, Hippies and Bikers come to hear David’s music, his legend and popularity grows!
At a time when the touring industry is anemic, he continues to play some 200 dates a year. David is packing ’em in on college campuses, biker bars (Iron Horse Saloon), honky tonks, state fairs, blues bars and music halls. If there’s a stage and people looking to let off some steam and have their feelings re-calibrated, David will be there. It’s a covenant that keeps the “Long Haired Redneck” on the road.
His devotion to the fans, and the music, has created a spiral that now has its own momentum. At David’s shows there’s a chemical reaction that transforms the songs when the audience is in the house. For it’s the people that set David on fire. When they start whooping and hollering, it feeds an already burning love of music and stokes the flames higher. You can hear the musicians straining to get every last drop of passion from their instruments. It’s in the way the notes bend, the beats pound and David’s gravelly voice just keeps coming at you like a train. In those moments, it’s easy to remember why music mattered so. And in those moments, we can all be transformed. But it takes someone willing to push the envelope to make it happen. For David, pushing the envelope is the natural course and just a starting point.
