CT-006
Thursday, March 31, 2016
David Alan Coe - (1975) Once Upon A Rhyme LP
In 1973, Tanya Tucker went to the top of the country charts with David Allan Coe's "Would You Lay With Me (In a Field of Stone)," turning a lot of singers and Nash Vegas executives' heads in his direction. Coe opens 1975's Once Upon a Rhyme with his own version of the song -- a gutsy thing to do for anybody, but then, Coe was always equal parts talent and raw nerve. The amazing thing is that both versions are definitive. But that first track is only the beginning of a truly wondrous journey through the mysterious and poetic sound world of David Allan Coe as both a singer and a songwriter. Produced by Ron Bledsoe and accompanied by some of Music City's finest new-generation session players -- like Charlie McCoy, Buddy Spicher, Reggie Young, and Pete Drake -- Coe follows his opener with another of his inimitable classics, "Jody Like a Melody," with its winding, lilting choruses and ethereal couplets. After the emotional impact of the first two tracks, add two self-penned masterpieces -- "Loneliness in Ruby's Eyes" and "Would You Be My Lady" -- and the listener is left nearly breathless. But with Coe, that's not enough, and he digs deeper emotionally with "Sweet Vibrations" and "Another Pretty Country Song." And brilliantly but inexplicably, he closes the set with three songs that either were, or became part of, the country canon as a result of this recording: Lawton Williams' "Fraulein," Richard Dobson's "Piece of Wood and Steel," and Steve Goodman's "You Never Even Called Me by My Name." The last of these is the only version most people know; it was as if the late Goodman had written it for Coe. His voice wraps itself so completely around the melody that the lyrics run like a river from his mouth, and he becomes the song's protagonist, supported in the weight of his grief by an electric guitar, a fiddle, and a pedal steel slipping in and out of an airy mix that is punctuated by a rhythm section that only underlines the truth in every line. This album and its predecessor, The Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy, established Coe as a major songwriting force; they remain enduring testaments to his songwriting brilliance as a criminally under-examined talent in the country tradition.
David Alan Coe - (1978) Human Emotions: Happy Side/ Su-i-side LP
By the end of 1978, outlaw singer/songwriter David Allan Coe had gone through another divorce -- one that was apparently very difficult, because he recorded this entire album around the topic. The subtitle of Human Emotions is "Happy Side/Suicide." Side one is comprised of songs composed -- and some recorded -- before his wife left; side two is the aftermath. At this time, producer Billy Sherrill had really begun to make his presence felt on David Allan Coe's records. Ron Bledsoe is still here with his patented honky tonk production style, but the Sherrill ambience creeps in here and gives everything a certain commercial-sounding fullness rather than the space of his earlier records. Human Emotions is a very commercial record that might have done well with radio and in stores had it not been for the positively menacing cover of an aviator-shaded Coe in full biker attire holding an acoustic guitar, next to the skull of an antelope. The album opens with a re-recording of "Would You Lay With Me (In a Field of Stone)," a track Sherrill convinced Coe to redo. This version is not as strong, perhaps because it comes from a place of brokenness rather than the ecstatic font of new love, but it is still an elegant and powerful tome. Human Emotions has plenty of standouts, however, like "You Can Count on Me," with its irrepressible chorus and phase-shifting guitars, and "Mississippi River Queen," a country rocker that sounds as if it were written for Hank Williams, Jr.. The title track is a masterpiece, with its syncopated vocal lead lines, country-waltz tempo, and huge backing chorus. There are also the outlaw anthems "Whiskey and Women" (with Janie Fricke on backing vocals) and one of the greatest drinking songs of all time, "Jack Daniels if You Please." The album finishes on a downer note with the track "Suicide," but despite its dark theme, Human Emotions is one of Coe's better efforts in the 1970s.
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