It’s become a Now That’s Class tradition to do a little drinking in appropriate honor of country outlaw David Allen Coe’s birthday. The Akron-born redneck turns 74 on September 6, so it’s time again.
The guy is known for his bluster and b.s., including promoting false stories about his hardscrabble background.
He most famously claimed to have spent years in juvenile detention and adult prisons for — well, the stories were constantly changing. WikiPedia still laughably claims he went to reform school at the age of 9 and spent the next 20 years in detention.
Finally, he was busted by Rolling Stone magazine, which learned he’d briefly been in a reform school-type setting as a teenager for a low-level offense.
Despite that, he continued to regale audiences with stories about his hard living.
Onstage at the Agora in 1984, he told a room packed with bikers that he’d been snorting coke backstage, that he’d killed a man while he was in prison, that his father had gone to prison for killing a man, and so had his road manager. They cheered appreciatively. They’d apparently been drinking so heavily that they’d de-activated their bullshit detectors.
It IS true that he did a brief stint in Cleveland-based country rockers Eli Radish in the early 70. It’s also true he’s a formidable songwriter who penned the anthem “Take This Job and Shove It,” Tanya Tucker’s massive hit “Would You Lay With Me (In a Field of Stone),” and one of the most gorgeous country ballads ever written, “Mona Lisa Lost Her Smile.”
They’ll be playing those tunes and more during happy hour at NTC. The $2.50 shots of Jack Daniels can help you replicate the experience of that biker-packed Agora show.
It’s free.
http://www.officialdavidallancoe.com/