David Allan Coe, one of country music’s most defiant and complex figures, has died at the age of 86.
Rolling Stone reported the death.
Born in Akron, Ohio in 1939, Coe came to Nashville in the 1960s as a songwriter before breaking out as a recording artist in his own right.
His profile rose sharply in 1973 when Tanya Tucker took his ballad Would you lie with me (on a stone field) to the top of the country charts.
He signed with Columbia Records not long after and released his debut studio album, The mysterious Rhinestone Cowboyin 1974.
His album from 1975 Once Upon a Rhyme introduced one of his most enduring songs, You never called me by my namewhile the 1976s Long-haired redneck became another famous entry in his catalog.
A year later he scored another number one when Johnny Paycheck recorded his composition Take this job and push it in 1977.
The triphis 1983 single, featuring a supernatural encounter with Hank Williams, became one of his most recognizable recordings.
Coe was never a straightforward figure.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he released two explicitly titled X-rated albums, Nothing sacred in 1978 and Underground album in 1982, which contained deeply offensive material, including racist slurs and homophobic and misogynistic language, and remains a significant part of his troubled legacy.
Legal difficulties came in the 2010s.
In 2015, Coe pleaded guilty to obstructing and obstructing tax law and was sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to pay nearly $1 million to the IRS.
He was 86.
