Rides Again

Even though Rides Again marks the first time David Allan Coe was allowed to use his own band on half of the album — a major concession on the part of Columbia Records because he hit pay dirt a couple of times — this stands as his most disappointingly inconsistent record of the 1970s. The last track on his previous album, "Dakota the Dancing Bear, Part II," was an exercise in cynical, pointless counterculture idiocy and, unfortunately, was the first of Coe's "novelty" songs. On Rides Again, by trying to make a conscious outlaw record and aligning himself with the movement's two progenitors on the opening track, "Willie, Waylon, and Me" (and equating himself with not only the Flying Burrito Brothers and the Eagles, but the Beatles as well!), Coe already set up self-parody unintentionally — something that continued to curse him. There are fine moments as well, such as "Under Rachel's Wings," "The House That We Call Home" (though it is the first of Coe's songs about polygamy), the plaintively moving "A Sense of Humor," the passionate and poetic "Greener Than the Grass We Laid On," and a killer cover of Dale Murphy's "Laid Back and Wasted." And while not without merit, the opening track — with its reprise halfway through the album — "Young Dallas Cowboy," and the infamous "If That Ain't Country (You Can kiss My Ass)" mar what might have been an exceptional album if Coe could only have contained his anger at the musical establishment in Nash Vegas, and not begun caricaturing himself — which added credibility to critics. This is not the place to start with Coe, but fans will most certainly want at least half of the tracks on this album.