Rides Again

Rides Again is an album released by country musician David Allan Coe. It was released in 1977 on Columbia. Background By 1977, the outlaw country movement was nearing its apex, having seen the release of Wanted! The Outlaws, country music's first platinum selling album, and Willie Nelson’s blockbuster LP Red Headed Stranger. Artists like Nelson and Waylon Jennings eschewed Nashville's strict studio regime and fought to record their own music their way, producing albums featuring music that brought a new realism previously unheard to country music. These albums often included compositions by groundbreaking songwriters such as Kris Kristofferson, Mickey Newbury, and Billy Joe Shaver, among others. David Allan Coe was part of this movement, having written “Would You Lay with Me (In a Field of Stone),” which became Tanya Tucker’s third #1 country single in 1974, and having scored the Top Ten hit “You Never Even Called Me by My Name” in 1975. After recording two albums that went nowhere, Coe signed with Columbia and released The Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy in 1974, his major label debut. Although capable of writing deeply tender love songs, Coe's outrageous appearance, defiant attitude, and controversial background kept him from being fully embraced by the mainstream in the same way some of his peers would be. By 1977, Coe considered himself as integral as anyone in the evolution of the outlaw country genre, and began saying so in his music. As noted in Thom Jurek's AllMusic review of the album, “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'... Coe already set up self-parody unintentionally - something that continued to curse him.” Recording Rides Again was the fourth album Coe recorded for Columbia produced by Ron Bledsoe. The songs crossfade without the usual silences between tracks, which was unusual for country music, and feature Coe's heavily phased guitar. Coe was also permitted to use his own band on several tracks, a major concession for Columbia at the time.