David Alan Coe, Unrepentant racist

OK, so I grew up admiring, at one point, some of the "outlaw country" performers, like Waylon and Willie. I remember wandering into a bar in Texas in the mid-80s and fidning out the guy setting up to play for about 30 people was Ray Wiley Hubbard, originator of the song "Red Neck Mothers" that my friends and I would drunkingly sing at the top of our voices as teens. I alter, learned, of course, that the rebel flag and "south's gonna rise again" mantra of much of that scene was racist to the core, whether they recognized or admitted it or not. Saw in today's Roanoke Times that David Alan Coe is coming to town. Article made mention of some controversy over some songs he recorded in 1978 and 1982 on albums offered exclusively through Easy Rider magazine. These albums kind of flew under the mainstream press radar until the Internet gave them wider exposure about 10 years ago. Coe in interviews angrily defends himself against charges of racism, pointing to his having a black drummer "married to a white chick" and Coe's hairstyle of dreadlocks down to his waist. And claims the songs (intermixed with misogynist, x-rated songs) were just bawdy fun, recorded on a lark and never meant for wider audiences. So which is it, is there nothing to be ashamed of with the songs, or is the problem that they've been brought to the light of day? I decided to check out the lyrics to these songs. One, called "Rails," released on the Nothing Sacred album offered through Easy Rider in 1978, has lyrics that in part go like this: (asterisks not in original) "Now women make me think of consolation prison makes me think of isolation ni**ers made me vote for segregation and cocaine makes me" [you get the idea] and later, "Well it's hard to work for a dollar a week and the Ku Klux Klan is bigger so take the sheets off of your bed and let's go hang a ni**er" about the ugliest, most despicable thing I've read in a long time. I mean, that makes me want to show up in Roanoke with a hundred like-minded folks and pound his head in. But then again, violence is not the answer. Still, I'd like to... Then there is the song from the 1982 Easy Rider-offered Underground album whose title blatantly says it all: "Ni**er F*cker" I'm ashamed to publish much of this one, but here's enough to get an idea whether this was, as Coe claims, just a lark--harmless fun that's no reflection on Coe's racial views: "Said she'd finally found a man Who's d**k was so much bigger Then that scumbag motherf***er Ran off with a ni**er ... Sure is hard to figure How any decent girl could ever f**k A greasy ni**er ... there's nothing quite as worthless As a white girl with a ni**er" And Coe, as far as I can tell, has never disavowed these songs, never apologized to anyone for them, never claimed to have learned how wrong it was to write, record and perform such vulgar trash. And he's still out there playing. Anybody want to get up a group to convey our displeasure when he shows up? If the printing of the above lyrics offend my readers, I'm sorry. They deeply offend me too, though not in the same way, I'm sure, as they do African Americans, and women of all races. It was not my intent to open wounds. I felt that the full impact of the harm this man has caused and the need to make him see the need to repent and apologize and disavow his involvement with these songs could only be conveyed by revealing just how revolting, insulting, offensive and inciting to violence his views were/are.