Records & Roots: David Allan Coe reigns as the 'Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy'

One of country music's most celebrated and reviled yet gifted creators will likely never appear during Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion. In years past, his name was bandied about at least on occasion during music committee meetings, but nothing came of that.You see, thanks in large part to a pair of X-rated albums, David Allan Coe is the most controversial figure in country music history. At least, perception rates him that way.Coe, who was born in Dayton, Ohio, turned 84 on Sept. 6. With his wife, Kim, Coe lives quietly in the suburbs of Cincinnati, Ohio. His health has prevented him from performing live in quite some time. No future tour dates are listed on his official website.But as Rhythm & Roots opens on Friday for a weekend-long embrace of wall-to-wall music in downtown Bristol, let's consider the music of David Allan Coe. All the while, bear in mind that during his "Theme Time Radio Hour" show, Bob Dylan branded Coe a "genius." Indeed, the man widely hailed as one of America's greatest and most respected songwriters is a fan of David Allan Coe.Murky as a concreted window, Coe's distant past remains difficult to see. He apparently did serve a short amount of prison time in Ohio during the 1960s. Upon release, Coe ventured to Nashville in search of a career in country music. He bought a hearse, painted it red and lettered it with his name as "The Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy."On Saturday nights, Coe parked his hearse on 5th Avenue in downtown Nashville. He parked directly across from the public's entrance of the Ryman Auditorium, which was the home of the fabled Grand Ole Opry. As people lined the sidewalk each Saturday night to attend the Opry and see stars such as Roy Acuff and Ernest Tubb, Coe regaled them with songs he wrote.But he did not stop there. Dressed in a white rhinestone suit with a matching cowboy hat and mask as The Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy, Coe sought attention. And he got it. Signed to Columbia Records, which was the label home of Johnny Cash, Coe's first big Nashville splash materialized as 1974's album, "The Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy."Backed by Nashville's best studio musicians, including pedal steel player Pete Drake and fiddler Buddy Spicher, Coe's major label debut did not sell well. His follow-up, 1975's "Once Upon a Rhyme," did. It opened with "Would You Lay with Me (In a Field of Stone)" and closed with "You Never Even Called Me by My Name," each of them jukebox-tilting classics.Alas, country radio was reluctant to play Coe's music. And that was before he recorded a pair of X-rated albums. Nonetheless, "You Never Even Called Me by My Name," which was mostly written by an uncredited John Prine, peaked at No. 8 on Billboard's country singles chart in the summer of 1975. Despite a strong string of melodic-drenched singles including "Willie, Waylon and Me," eight years would pass before Coe scored another top 10 record of his own.And yet country singers were eager to record Coe's songs. Label mate Tanya Tucker took Coe's "Would You Lay with Me (In a Field of Stone)" to No. 1 in 1974. In January 1978, fellow country outlaw Johnny Paycheck peaked at No. 1 with Coe's "Take This Job and Shove It," which quickly became country's most ballyhooed protest song of the era.In the aftermath of RCA's 1976 release of the million-selling album, "Wanted! The Outlaws," country music's outlaw movement became an enormous force. Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson became outlaw country's de facto leaders. Gradually, fellow long-haired and bearded fellows including Johnny Paycheck and David Allan Coe were branded as outlaws, too.Great marketing tool, right? Willie Nelson did not mind. Paycheck and Coe welcomed the label. Jennings despised it, as evidenced in his bass-thumping ominous song from 1978, "Don't You Think This Outlaw Bit's Done Got Out of Hand."Flush with cash, Coe moved to Key West, Florida. Coe spoke of those days during an extensive and pointed interview we did in the early 2000s. Coe said he and neighbor Shel Silverstein — who penned "A Boy Named Sue," hosted occasional picking parties. They swapped songs, many of them made them up on the spot.Coe said that Silverstein suggested that he record some of those songs and "sell them to your biker friends." Coe did exactly that. In 1978, Coe's raunchy "Nothing Sacred" album was released independently on cassette. Ads ran in the back of Easyriders magazine, a monthly publication popular among motorcycle enthusiasts. Four years later, Coe issued another album of highly controversial songs, "Underground Album."A year later, 1983's "The Ride" became something of a comeback on country radio for Coe. Its eerie tale of a late-night encounter with the hitchhiking ghost of Hank Williams climbed to No. 4 on Billboard's country singles chart. Coe's syrupy balled "Mona Lisa Lost Her Smile," became his last top 10 record in 1984.Then the music industry went digital. CDs quickly supplanted records as the favored medium. The internet followed.Sure enough, Coe's pair of skeletons rattled from the closet and onto the internet in the form of bootlegs. His reputation, long maligned in certain quarters of country music, torpedoed. Attacks of racism and misogyny haunted Coe throughout the 2000s. And still do."My drummer," Coe said during our interview, "is (famed blues musician) Gatemouth Brown's son. He's black. If I am a racist, would I hire a black man to be in my band? I am not a racist."And so David Allan Coe turned 84 this week. He did so quietly. At least for now, his name no longer emblazons marquees. Still, his music, much of it lyrically beautiful and mesmerizing, will outlive him. Love him or hate him, but at his best, David Allan Coe lived up to Bob Dylan's description.