It was part theater and part rebellion.
Coe understood that audiences remembered characters.
And David Allan Coe was certainly a character.
But underneath the unusual appearance was a songwriter with a distinctive ability to turn frustration, loneliness, humor, working-class anger, heartbreak, and defiance into songs.
His first album, “Penitentiary Blues,” drew heavily from material he had written while incarcerated.
The album was released in 1969 and did not become a major commercial success, but it established something important.
David Allan Coe had arrived.
And he was not going to sound like everyone else.
## The Rise of Outlaw Country
The 1970s brought a major shift in country music.
Artists associated with the outlaw movement began pushing back against the polished Nashville establishment.
Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings became central figures in that transformation.
Other musicians found their own ways of challenging the conventions of mainstream country.
Coe fit naturally into that world.
