David Alan Coe, the country singer-songwriter who wrote the working-class anthem “Take This Job and Shove It” and had hits with “You Never Even Called Me By My Name,” “The Ride” and others, has died at age 86.
Ko’s wife, Kimberly Hastings Ko, confirmed his death to Rolling Stone on Wednesday.
She described him as one of the best singer-songwriters of our time.
“My husband, my friend, my best friend, and my life for many years. I will never forget him and I don’t want anyone else to ever forget him,” she wrote in the post.
David Alan Coe, sporting Willie Nelson’s braids, performs at Willie Nelson’s Fourth of July Picnic, on July 4, 1983 at Atlanta International Raceway in Hampton, Georgia.
AP Photo/Rudolph Faircloth, file
A statement from Coe’s representative told People magazine that he died around 5 p.m. Wednesday. The cause of death was not revealed.
Whether labeled an outlaw or underground, Coe was clearly an outsider to the Nashville music establishment, even throughout his successes as an in-demand songwriter and singer, eventually developing a core of followers around his raw, often obscene lyrics and his checkered and somewhat mysterious past.
His wife posted on Facebook in September 2021 that he had been hospitalized with COVID-19 and has only been seen a few times since.
He has toured with Willie Nelson, Kid Rock, Neil Young and others. He wrote “Take This Job and Shove It,” a hit for Johnny Beach in 1977, and “Would You Lay With Me (in a Field of Stone),” a hit for Tanya Tucker in 1974. He was also the first country singer to record “Tennessee Whisky,” written by Dean Dillon and Linda Hargrove, which has since become a genre standard and a hit for George Jones and Chris Stapleton.
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His hit recordings in his country included “You Never Even Call Me by My Name”, written by uncredited Steve Goodman and John Prine; “The Journey” and “Mona Lisa Lost Her Smile.” Koo has also appeared in a number of films, including “Stagecoach” and “Take this Job and Shove It,” named after his song.
Coe, born in Akron, Ohio, spent time in corrections as a youth, and served time in an Ohio prison from 1963 to 1967 for possession of burglary tools. He also said he spent time with the Outlaws Motorcycle Club, but some tales about his prison time and personal life have been greatly exaggerated over the years.
“I wouldn’t have been able to get through prison without my music,” he said in an AP interview in 1983. “Nobody could take it (the music) away from me. They could put me in the hole and do nothing, but I could still make up a song in my head.”
He recorded his first album, a blues album, Penitentiary Blues, using songs he wrote in prison. He later told reporters that he tried not to rely too heavily on prison as a subject for the songs because of the similarities to Merle Haggard’s backstory, but it was his criminal history that everyone seemed interested in focusing on.
Coe then recorded for Columbia Records and made the album “The Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy,” which became his nickname after performing in a rhinestone suit and wearing a mask.
During the height of the outlaw movement, Coe placed himself in the middle of the scene, with songs like “Longhaired Redneck,” which included lyrics about performing in dive bars, “where bikers stare at cowboys laughing at hippies praying to get out of here alive.”
He was featured in the popular outlaw country documentary, “Heartworn Highways,” in which he performed a concert in a Tennessee prison.
Ko, who had heavily tattoos and long hair, enjoyed a diverse fan base that included bikers, doctors, lawyers and bankers. His last record, released in 2006, was a collaboration with Dimebag Darrell and other former members of the heavy metal group Pantera.
He released two R-rated albums, “Nothing Sacred” in 1978 and “Underground Album” in 1982, which he sold through biker magazines. The songs on these albums have been criticized for being racist, homophobic, and sexually explicit. He told Billboard magazine in 2001 that author and songwriter Shel Silverstein convinced him to record songs he wrote, something he regretted.
“These songs were supposed to be sung to bikers around a campfire, and I still don’t sing those songs at concerts,” he said.
In 2016, Ko was ordered to pay more than $980,000 to the IRS in restitution for obstructing the tax agency, and was sentenced to three years of probation. Court documents say Coe earned income from at least 100 concerts a year from 2008 through 2013 and did not file individual income tax returns or pay taxes when he filed his returns.
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