David Allan Coe Penitentiary Blues CD

David Allan Coe is perhaps the most frustrating figure in the history of country music. An undeniable talent who has written some of the most sensitive and gripping `70s country ballads this side of Townes Van Zandt and some of the most rabble-rousing outlaw recordings, Coe also phoned in cloying cheese and, more repugnantly, subsidized his sometimes flagging career with unofficial recordings of extremely racist material.

The latter fact is what makes PENITENTIARY BLUES so oddly compelling. This is not a country record, not even remotely. Rather Coe emerged from his time in an Ohio penitentiary playing full-on, African American-influenced electric Chicago blues. Hearing Coe yowl clichés like "sho' `nuff make you lose your mind" can be off-putting, to say the least, if not stomach-turning. Political correctness aside, though, Coe--perhaps toughened by his time in the clink--does lend a believable grit to this material and for the most part pulls it off. Completists will rejoice, but neophytes are advised to stick with his fantastic mid-70s outlaw albums.

David Allan Coe is widely known as one of the poster boys for 1970s Outlaw Country, and on PENITENTIARY BLUES, his debut album, Coe's patented bad-boy image was already fully formed. Musically, however, he was entrenched firmly in an urban blues mode, as opposed to the honky-tonk infused sound of his best-known albums. Nevertheless, his lyrics espouse his trademark themes of prison, trouble, and hard living.

David Allan Coe's debut album, released in 1969 shortly after his release from prisons in its own way a wonder. Penitentiary Blues is far more a blues album than it is a country record, musically styled after the dark, loungy blues of Charlie Rich and Jerry Lee Lewis in his Mercury period as well as the rawer mercurial blues of Bo Diddley, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Tony Joe White. The subject matter is far darker and foreshadows the subjects and themes of Coe's later country records. The title cut mentions everything from working for the first time to taking blood tests in his heroin veins. "Cell 33" is a wide-open rocking shuffle with Jerry Lee Lewis' piano coming out of the backdrop of a muddy mix and playing solo after choogling guitar riffs over lines like: "They'll find me hangin' here tomorrow/If they don't come with the key." Musically, Coe was wrapped in the blues, particularly the barroom tradition. At the time, his band was clearly not capable of handling the more sophisticated honky tonk songs he would be writing shortly thereafter, some appearing on his next recording, Requiem for a Harlequin. This is redneck music, pure and simple, fresh out of hell and trying to communicate the giddiness of reprieve as well as its horrors to the listener. There's an obsession with hoodoo imagery and death, with self-loathing and boasting, and the contradictions in a man who doesn't want to go back to prison but who seems resigned to the fact he will because he's been inside so long (for Coe it was almost 20 years), he has no idea how to live on the outside. There are hints and traces of the lyrical genius Coe would display later, but taken as a whole, Penitentiary Blues is thoroughly enjoyable as a rowdy, funky, and crude blues record full of out-of-tune guitars, slippery performances, and an attitude of "F*%$ it, let's get it done and get it out," which was a trademark of Plantation Records during the era. Penitentiary Blues is a set of voodoo blues from a future country legend and pariah. ~ Thom Jurek

Liner Note Authors: David Allan Coe; Colin Escott.

Recording information: Singleton Sound Studios, Nashville, TN (01/19/1970-02/20/1970).

Authors: Shelby Singleton; Kid Rock; Peter Case.

Personnel: David Allan Coe (vocals); Teddy Paige (guitar, harmonica); Mac Gayden, Charlie McCoy (guitar, bass guitar); Ed Kollis (harmonica); David Briggs (piano); Billy Linneman, William C. Sanders (bass guitar); Kenneth A. Buttrey, Karl Himmel (drums).

Audio Remasterer: Randy Perry .

Uncut (p.127) - 3 stars out of 5 - "[T]hese songs rail like the spooked soul of a man with nothing left to lose."
Mojo (Publisher) (p.130) - 3 stars out of 5 - "[T]he record makes its mark, raw and rugged, and punctuated with bouts of crazy loon laughter."