A sad situation.
Last week, country music suffered a huge loss with the passing of David Allan Coe, who died at the age of 86 while in an intensive care unit.
The country legend had a rough upbringing in his hometown of Akron, Ohio, being sent away to reform school at the age of 9 and spending the majority of his childhood and early adulthood either in reform school or behind bars. But while serving time in prison in his hometown of Akron, Ohio, Coe developed a love for songwriting and moved to Nashville to pursue a career in music after being released in 1967.
Among his legendary catalog, Coe is best known for songs like “Longhaired Redneck,” “The Ride” and of course the original version of “Tennessee Whiskey,” which later also became a hit for George Jones and Chris Stapleton, who allowed the song to become just the third song in history to sell 20 million units and go double-diamond. Additionally, he also wrote songs like “Take This Job And Shove It,” which would become a hit for Johnny Paycheck.
Despite the fact that Coe had a hand in creating a plethora of songs that are all but considered staples in the genre, it’s hard not to talk about some of the controversies that followed him throughout his career. Even ignoring the likes of his Nothing Sacred album and the infamous X-Rated Hits collection, Coe would struggle throughout his life with keeping close relationships with many loved ones — even his eight children.
In particular, his daughter, Tanya Montana Coe, who is also an artist, spoke out recently to give some insight into the strained relationship between the “Longhaired Redneck” singer and the rest of her siblings.
Upon the news of Coe’s death, Tanya would take to Facebook to share the heartbreaking reality of the situation: she didn’t even know her father had passed away until news outlets broke the story, and she wasn’t able to see him in the hospital before he passed.
“Waking up to the news that your dad has died and not being given the opportunity to see him one last time is a hell I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. If anyone finds out about any funeral arrangements, please let me know as I would like to be at my dad’s funeral.”
After speaking out on multiple outlets reporting on the aforementioned Facebook post, Tanya decided to speak with Entertainment Weekly to give more insight into her strained relationship with the late outlaw legend and provide some more context into their dynamic.
Immediately, she’d note that it had been years since the last time she spoke with Coe, and it was all the way back in 2013 after he was hospitalized due to a traffic accident. However, she isn’t even sure if she was actually talking to him since it was over text.
“The last time I ‘spoke’ with him was when I was texting with him when he was in the hospital after the car accident. But I don’t know if I was actually talking to him or if it was someone else pretending to be him from his phone.”
Tanya would then reveal that all eight of Coe’s children rarely had direct access to him throughout much of their adult life, even noting that her sister, Carla, and her had to track his address down in order to request a wellness check recently.
“I don’t know if I should speak for them, but none of us eight children had access to him. My sister Carla and I finally tracked down an address for him and performed two wellness checks on him in the last year and a half.”
Despite the clearly strained relationship Coe had with all his children, Tanya says that all of her siblings had an extreme amount of love and pride for him and his music. Particularly, she’d acknowledge that his tumultuous childhood and early adulthood had a major impact on him throughout his life.
“All of us children loved and will continue to love our dad more than this dimension can contain. I know he loved us and was proud of us. I know he was suffering emotionally inside always. He had an extremely traumatic childhood/early adult life, and I am so proud of what he made of himself as an artist. All we kids ever really wanted was for him to feel free in his soul and in his spirit and be happy, and we hope he can be now.”
Tanya’s comments echo a similar sentiment by her brother, Tyler Mahan Coe, who actually played in David’s band for years before they became estranged. Here, Tyler would acknowledge the painful end to his relationship with his father back in 2013. Like Tanya, however, he would express how he never hated his father and understood, in a way, that his actions were a consequence of his upbringing and nature as a whole.
“David Allan Coe was always a difficult person to be close with, a difficult person to care about for several reasons. Nobody who ever knew him would disagree with that statement. But I did always care about him, even after it became clear that he and I were never going to speak to each other again. I never wanted anything bad to happen to him.
I do hate the choices he made for how to spend the final decade or so of his life, but I didn’t hate him. And those were his choices to make. Anyone who knows anything about that man knows how useless it would be to try to get him to make different choices.”
Tanya shared a handful of childhood photos with her father thanking fans for sending love and condolences:
“Thank you for the outpouring of love and condolences. I couldn’t have loved my dad more and I never gave up on him.”
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RIP DAC.
