David Allan Coe - Human Emotions / Spectrum VII (1995)

David Allan Coe's seventh and eighth albums for Columbia (documented here on CD by the illustrious Bear Family label from Germany as the fourth issue in their Coe retrospective series) reveal just how influential producer Billy Sherrill became on Coe's sound, and how completely he trusted Sherrill's instincts. Human Emotions, written and recorded after being left by his wife of two years, had Coe offering two sides of his complex feelings of despondency. There is the "Happy Side," comprised of songs written and recorded before his wife left, and in some cases before they even met. The other side is entitled "Suicide" (also the name of the album's final track, the definitive black metal country song), which is a painful examination of one's shortcomings and bitterness after the divorce. Most notable is the re-recording of "Would You Lay With Me (In a Field of Stone)," which is perhaps even more powerful than the original, done four years earlier. Spectrum VII, issued in 1979, barely a year later, is full of beautiful honky tonk songs and whining pedal steel guitars as well as folky country waltzes and progressive country tunes that have as much in common with songwriters such as Jesse Colin Young and Jimmy Buffett as they do with Nash Vegas' finest. There is a corny track -- characteristic of all Coe outings -- as well as the truly definitive version of Dave Loggins' unintentional pop hit "Please Come to Boston." As with all the Coe reissues, this one is chock-full of session photographs and the sound is spectacular. The liner-note essays -- which ceased to be a part of the packaging after the second Bear Family volume -- are missed, though.