Recommended for Airplay
Though more often compared to and associated withWillie,Waylon, and evenHank Jr.for his renegade Nashville-rumbling status, David Allan Coe bears more than a passing resemblance (musically, that is) toMerle Haggard. On 1999'sRecommended for Airplay, boozy two-step shuffles like "Drink My Wife Away" and the wink-wink-nudge-nudge "Drink Canada Dry" seem as if they could easily have been plucked from the Hag's canon. And while the wholly new material onRecommendedis all but pickled in alcohol references and tends toward redneck rock stereotype, Ray Kennedy's ace production and acoustic inflections keep things from falling off the wagon. Additionally, Coe has enlisted swell backing singers and a crackerjack band that smokes on electric wah-wah guitar, whirling Hammond organ, slide, and steel. A kinder, gentler Coe who's lived through the good old bad days, he offers fine moments on the gentle "In My Life" and the jaded "She's Already Gone": "If the proof's in the pudding, the cake's in the oven."--Paige La Grone