Coming on the heels of the brilliant Invictus Means Unconquered in 1980, Tennessee Whiskey from 1981 is another strong David Allan Coe outing, full of interesting song choices and hard country performances à la Merle Haggard and George Jones. Refusing to give into the flavor-of-the-month generic country "talent," Coe stuck to what he knew and sharpened the edges. Opening with the Dean Dillon/Linda Hargrove classic title track, with a honky tonk performance that is softened only by the swell of backing vocals, it sets a high standard for the rest of the album to follow, which it does. Coe's own folk-country nugget, "If I Knew," softened the electric guitars in favor of a 12-string and a honky tonk piano with a slippery steel in the distance to color his vocal before a banjo arrives on the final two choruses and transforms them into something akin to a bluegrass stomp. The most eclectic and risky track on the set is a cover of Otis Redding's "Dock of the Bay." Many have tried and almost no one has succeeded with this one, but Coe's read is immediate, deep, and soulful in a restless country way. Anyone who ever doubted his ability to interpret a classic tune should give this one a listen because, frankly, it'll blow your mind. The band puts in a credible performance as well, with its funky, dirty groove. Shel Silverstein and Fred Koller's lovely "Juanita" is given the Volcano-era Jimmy Buffett treatment. The blues-ed-out "We Got a Bad Thing Goin'" with Terry McMillan is a greasy little number that gives the album something edgy. The honky tonk standard "D-R-U-N-K" is given fine treatment here by Coe and guest the late John Hartford, and Coe's own "Little Orphan Annie" is a ballad-turned-bluegrass orgy. In all, Tennessee Whiskey proved once again that no matter what the critics and programmers said or didn't, when he made records, he always showed up to play.
For the Record: The First 10 Years gets a slight edge over its counterpart 17 Greatest Hits, not just because it contains three more songs, but because it gives a greater context for David Allan Coe's achievements. Yes, his redneck tendencies sound a little disturbing to PC-leaning ears, but Coe was a great, unashamed country singer, singing the purest honky-tonk and hardest country of his era, making even Waylon and Willie seem a little conventional. There is an undeniable reactionary streak to his music yet, especially in retrospect, this makes it stronger, since he seems like one of the lone voices fighting for traditional country values. Did he win the fight? Well, in a way, he did, since he created pure, hardcore country, as this set of songs proves. This is Coe at his very best, from covers of "Please Come to Boston" to his trademarks "Longhaired Country," "Willie, Waylon and Me," "Jack Daniels, if You Please," and "Mona Lisa Lost Her Smile." He winds up relying on covers a bit much, but his attitude makes him stand apart from his brethren. He may not be the most original outlaw, but there's none more outlaw than him.
Darlin', Darlin' is one of the strangest records in David Allan Coe's catalog. For starters, Coe wrote only two songs on the set, a spiritual song called "Mary Go Round the Birth of Jesus" and the fourth and last part of "For Lovers Only," which closes the album. Musically, this is a big production number -- even for Billy Sherrill. There are keyboards winding through everything, big backing vocals, and layered pedal steel and electric guitars. Some of the covers are curious choices as well: Smokey Robinson's "My Girl," a soul holdover from Just Divorced, and J.J. Cale's "Call Me the Breeze." The rest were written by a current crop of Nashville songwriters, like the spooky minor key "She Used to Love Me a Lot" and Sherrill's brilliant "My Elusive Dreams." There is also a duet on the disc: "Don't Cry Darlin'" puts Coe in the company of the Possum, George Jones, and unfortunately, it's one of Darlin', Darlin''s low points. For the most part, the set showcases Coe as one of the great country singers, wrapping his throaty baritone around love songs, pop songs, and rock tunes. And as a singer's recording, as odd as some of the material choices are, it works and works well -- check Sharon Rice's "Too Close to Home," with keyboard and saxophone solos, but it's Coe's voice that carries the day.
With so much being made of current practitioners of the Kosmiche/ New Age vibe here's your opportunity to hear an original. Original copies hardly ever surface and even the 2007 repress (which sounded quite thin) commands quite a fee on internet auction sites. This straight analog pressing sounds as close to the original master tapes as you can get. 500 made. Pressed at RTI.
"If you have been wondering what all the fuss about "private press new age" is, go here to find out. Your mind shall be subtly blown..." Fader
Wizards was my first deep trance electronic music album. This album was inspired by Terry Riley , one of the earliest people ever to compose and perform long, extended, cyclic pieces in the electronic format. This music was composed and performed in ''81 and ''82.
I consider this album my best work.
The instrumentation is three Sequencial Circuits PRO-1s, Crumar Traveler One and a Yamaha SK-20, all real time recording to a Teac 4-track reel-to-reel. I mixed the four tracks to a Teac A-7300 Master 2-Track tape recorder using a DeltaLab DL-2 to create the delay track. In 2006, I used a Tascam 34B 4-track to remaster all my master tapes to digital master of 196 KHz/24 bit .WAV files using Soundforge 8 software.
The original Wizards LP was published in the Summer of 1982 with the black and white cover. The initial tracks had not names and were call Movements I-V. Several years later sales had slowed down, in an effort to improve sales we tried the color cover and I created names for each track, as shown on the samples.
J.D. Emmanuel
Underwater Peoples Records 005
Limited to 500 copies.Re-mastered 6 x 45rpm box set. Released for Record Store Day 2013. Comes with poster and stickers and liner-notes.
The ultimate edition of Nobunny's debut LP "Love Visions". The modern outsider punk classic is spread across SIX 7"s. Remastered from (as many) original source tapes/files (as possible), to polish these turds to maximum scuzzocity! Featuring a 21"x21" poster, a sticker sheet, and an insert/ lyrics / liner notes / history by the Nobunny himself. Songs catchy like herpes. Both obvious and inventive at the same time. Love Visions is one of, if not thee best "lo-fi" RnR debut since HASIL ADKINS' "Out To Hunch" or SUPERCHARGER'S s/t LP. Perfect in it's imperfections, with songs that stick to you like peanut butter & bubbledumb.
