Country Music legend dead at 86…See more .

But David Allan Coe was never simply a singer.

He was a character.

He was a storyteller.

He was an outsider who seemed almost determined to remain an outsider, even after becoming an important figure in one of country music’s most influential eras.

His career was filled with music, controversy, hardship, reinvention, mystery, and larger-than-life stories.

And now, after more than five decades in music, that remarkable chapter has come to an end.

## A Life That Never Followed the Ordinary Path

David Allan Coe was born in Akron, Ohio, on September 6, 1939.

Long before he became associated with Nashville and outlaw country, his early life was marked by instability and time spent in reformatories and correctional facilities.

He served time in an Ohio prison from 1963 to 1967 for possession of burglary tools.

Those experiences would later become an unavoidable part of the public mythology surrounding him.

But Coe insisted that music was more important to him than the stories people told about his past.

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