By 1986, country music entered a new phase as a crop of younger country stars like George Strait, Randy Travis, and Dwight Yoakam emerged to become a dominating presence on country radio. In the coming years, older country stars would find it more difficult to get airplay and see sales dip. Even Johnny Cash, whose name had been synonymous with country music for decades, was dropped by Columbia in 1985. Coe, who originally made a name for himself as a songwriter, composing the 1973 Tanya Tucker hit “Would You Lay with Me ”, gained prominence as part of the 1970s outlaw country movement and steadily released albums throughout the 1980s produced by Billy Sherrill, scoring his biggest hit in 1984 when “Mona Lisa Lost Her Smile” peaked at #2.
Recording
Son of the South is a summit of sorts, being the first time fellow outlaw legends Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Jessie Colter appeared on a Coe release. Coe composed “Willie, Waylon, and Me” for his 1977 album Rides Again, aligning himself with the outlaw movement, and maintained friendships with both men, despite Jennings cool treatment towards him at times. Jennings drummer Richie Albright called Coe “a great, great songwriter. A great singer. But he could not tell the truth if it was better than a lie he’d made up. Waylon didn’t make him comfortable enough to hang around. But Willie did. I was around Willie quite a bit and David Allan was with him eighty percent of the time. Willie allowed him to hang around.” In his autobiography, Jennings mentions Coe once, calling him “the most sincere of the bunch” of bandwagon jumpers, but contends “When it came to being an Outlaw, the worst thing he ever did was double parking on Music Row.” Jennings also writes: Jennings and wife Jesse Colter join Coe on Colter’s “Storms Never Last,” which incorporates a light Caribbean feel, while Jennings and Nelson contribute vocals to Coe’s composition “I Hate Love.” Nelson joins Coe by himself on the mournful ballad “I’ve Already Cheated on You,” a song the pair wrote together. Another duet, “Couldn’t Do Anything Right” features Karen Brooks, one of Coe’s favourite songwriters and regular duet partner. Coe only contributed one original song to his last album Unchained, but appears to have found his muse on this LP, having a hand in writing more than half the songs, including “The Country Boy,” a tribute to Hank Williams, Buddy Holly, and Elvis Presley that reached #44 on the countrysingles chart, and the love song “To Help You Love Again,” a co-write with fellow songwriting maverick Shel Silverstein. Of the song "Gemini Girl" Coe later stated, "That song was about one of the weirdest relationships that I was ever in - with the gemini person. I never was able to catch onto the whole 'twin thing.' You have to understand that when they are one, they are not the other." Coe also helped compose the rocking title track, where he shouts out his love for Hank Williams, Jr., the Allman Brothers, himself, George Jones, ZZ Top, Harley Davidson choppers, his Stetson hat, and generally raising hell, proclaiming himself a “longhaired redneck rock and roll song of the south!” Allman Brothers guitarist Dickey Betts plays on the track, which closes out the album on a raucous note.
Artwork
Coe’s album covers had been provocative in the past, like the 1977 release Texas Moon, which displays Coe and his associates mooning the camera, and the 1978 release Family Album, which AllMusic Thom Jurek calls “one of the most bizarre covers in David Allan Coe's - hell, anybody's - catalog. He is dressed in a minister's black, flowing robe with an Amish hat, a little blonde girl in his lap, his two - yes, two - wives standing behind him, and behind them, a black Lincoln Town Car and Coe's Silver Eagletour bus. The album is dedicated to his two mothers - he's apparently from a Mormon family - and stipulates how difficult it is for a child to have two mothers. It's so surreal one is almost afraid to play the recording.” The cover of Son of the South – Coe sat holding a baby with a Confederate flag draped over his shoulders – was one more in a series of decisions that occasionally alienated Coe from the country mainstream, although Coe did print a message on the back of the album to diffuse any potential backlash:
The line “Regardless of what you’ve heard about me” likely refers to Coe’s reputation as a misogynist and a racist, stemming from two independently released albums of explicit material, 1978’s Nothing Sacred and 1982’s Underground Album, which Neil Strauss called "among the most racist, misogynist, homophobic and obscene songs recorded by a popular songwriter." It is not surprising, then, that the cover of Son of the South would be reinforce negative opinions about Coe. Interestingly, the first born son mentioned in Coe’s message, Tyler Mahan Coe, currently is the creator of the popular podcast Cocaine & Rhinestones, which deep dives into the history of country music in the twentieth century. Tyler once toured in Coe’s band before being allegedly fired.
Reception
Son of the South reached #31 on the country albums chart.
