Entertainment
David Allan Coe, country singer who wrote “Take This Job and Shove It,” dies at age 86
David Allan Coe, the country singer-songwriter who wrote the working class anthem “Take This Job and Shove It” and had hits with “You Never Even Called Me By My Name” and “The Ride” among others, has died, a representative for Coe confirmed to CBS News. He was 86.
Coe died in a hospital around 5 p.m. Wednesday, his manager David Wade confirmed to CBS News in a statement Thursday. The cause of death wasn’t disclosed.
“He was a complicated man, an outlaw, and a great Songwriter, Singer, and Showman,” Coe said. “He had fans from around the world and appreciated them all.”
Coe’s wife, Kimberly Hastings Coe, told Rolling Stone he was one of the best singers and songwriters of our time.
“My husband, my friend, my confidant and my life for many years. I’ll never forget him and I don’t want anyone else to ever forget him either,” she wrote to the publication.
Rick Kern/WireImage for Shock Ink/Getty Images
Whether he was labeled outlaw or underground, Coe was clearly an outsider in Nashville’s music establishment, even throughout his successes as an in-demand songwriter and singer, eventually developing a core following around his raw, often obscene lyrics and a checkered and somewhat mysterious past.
His wife posted on Facebook in September 2021 that he had been hospitalized with COVID-19 and he made few appearances since then.
He did concert tours with Willie Nelson, Kid Rock, Neil Young and others. He wrote “Take This Job and Shove It,” a hit by Johnny Paycheck in 1977, and “Would You Lay With Me (in a Field of Stone),” a hit by Tanya Tucker in 1974. He was also the first country singer to record “Tennessee Whiskey,” penned by Dean Dillon and Linda Hargrove, that has since become a genre standard and hits for George Jones and Chris Stapleton.
His own country hit recordings included “You Never Even Call Me by My Name,” written by Steve Goodman and an uncredited John Prine; “The Ride,” and “Mona Lisa Lost Her Smile.” Coe also appeared in a handful of movies, including “Stagecoach” and “Take this Job and Shove It,” which was named after his song.
Coe, born in Akron, Ohio, spent time in reformatories as a youngster, and served time in an Ohio prison from 1963 to 1967 for possession of burglary tools. He also has said he spent time with the Outlaws motorcycle club, but some of the tales about his prison time and his personal life have been wildly exaggerated over the years.
“I’d have never made it through prison without my music,” he said in an AP interview in 1983. “No one could take it (music) away from me. They could put me in the hole with nothing to do but I could still make up a song in my head.”
He recorded his first album, a blues album called “Penitentiary Blues,” using songs that he wrote in prison. He later told reporters that he tried not to lean too heavily on prison as a topic for songs because of the similarities to the backstory of Merle Haggard, but that his criminal history was all people seemed interested in focusing on.
Coe recorded next for Columbia Records and did the album “The Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy,” which became his nickname after performing in a rhinestone suit and wearing a mask.
During the heyday of the outlaw movement, Coe placed himself at the center of the scene, with songs like “Longhaired Redneck,” which featured lyrics about performing in dive bars, “Where bikers stare at cowboys who are laughing at the hippies who are praying they’ll get out of here alive.”
He was featured in the acclaimed documentary about the outlaw country movement called “Heartworn Highways,” in which he performs a concert at a Tennessee prison.
Coe, himself heavily tattooed and sporting long hair, claimed a diverse fan base that included bikers, doctors, lawyers and bankers. His last record, released in 2006, was a collaboration with Dimebag Darrell and other former members of the heavy metal group Pantera.
He released two R-rated albums, 1978′s “Nothing Sacred” and 1982′s “Underground Album,” that he sold via biker magazines. The songs on these albums have been criticized for being racist, homophobic and sexually explicit. He told Billboard magazine in 2001 that author and songwriter Shel Silverstein convinced him to record the songs he had written, something he had come to regret.
“Those were meant to be sung around the campfire for bikers, and I still don’t sing those songs in concert,” he said.
In 2016, Coe was ordered to pay the IRS more than $980,000 in restitution for obstructing the tax agency and was sentenced to three years’ probation. Court documents say Coe earned income from at least 100 concerts yearly from 2008 through 2013 and either didn’t file individual income tax returns or pay taxes when he did file.
Well, that soft launch has officially become a full-blown hard launch.
Sydney Sweeney just made things very Instagram official with Scooter Braun – and fans wasted approximately three seconds before turning the comments section into a full FBI investigation.
The Euphoria star dropped a Stagecoach photo carousel on Friday that looked innocent enough at first: cowboy vibes, festival lights, karaoke chaos. Then came the cuddling photos.
One snapshot showed the pair squeezed together in a photo booth making goofy faces, while another featured Braun literally carrying Sweeney bridal-style through the crowd like this was the final scene of a rom-com nobody saw coming.
There was also a clip of them singing karaoke together and another of Sweeney perched on his shoulders during a performance because apparently subtlety has officially left the chat.
“cowboy kind of weekend,” she captioned the post — which may be the understatement of the year.
Braun had already hinted at the romance weeks earlier after posting Sweeney on his Instagram Story, but this is the clearest confirmation yet that the two are no longer trying to keep things low-key.
The pair reportedly started dating in September 2025 after meeting at the lavish wedding of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez in Venice.
Since then, they have been spotted on multiple dates and holding hands publicly.
Now? The internet has officially upgraded them from rumour to relationship status.
The wardrobe is officially open again – and this time, Greta Gerwig is leading the way.
Netflix has finally confirmed the title and release dates for Gerwig’s long-awaited Chronicles of Narnia reboot, and fantasy fans already sound emotionally unwell online.
The first film will be called Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew and arrives in theaters on February 12, 2027, before landing on Netflix on April 2.
And yes, the cast is stacked.
Meryl Streep, Daniel Craig, Carey Mulligan, Emma Mackey and Denise Gough are all set to appear in the fantasy epic based on C.S. Lewis’ classic books.
Gerwig, who writes, directs, and produces the film, got deeply personal while explaining why this story matters to her.
“I was a child when I first read The Magician’s Nephew, and I fell in love with the gorgeously improbable but completely brilliant concept of a cosmic lion singing the world of Narnia to life,” she said.
“I didn’t know that I would grow up to make films… but a universe built out of music is an idea that always lived in my heart.”
Unlike the earlier Narnia movies, Gerwig’s film starts at the very beginning of the timeline, exploring Aslan’s creation of Narnia itself – essentially the fantasy franchise’s origin story.
In other words: Greta Gerwig is about to make an entire generation cry over a lion all over again.
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday broadening US sanctions against the Cuban government, two White House officials told Reuters, as he seeks to put more pressure on Havana after ousting Venezuela’s leader.
The fresh sanctions target people, entities and affiliates that support the Cuban government’s security apparatus or are complicit in corruption or serious human rights violations, as well as agents, officials or supporters of the government, the officials said.
It was not immediately clear who exactly had been hit with sanctions under the order, which was first reported by Reuters.
But a copy of the order released by the White House said the sanctions could apply to “any foreign person” operating in the “energy, defence and related materiel, metals and mining, financial services, or security sector of the Cuban economy, or any other sector of the Cuban economy.”
The order authorises secondary sanctions for conducting or facilitating transactions with those targeted under the order, the officials said.
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said the new “coercive” measures reinforce the US’s “brutal, genocidal” blockade against the island.
“The blockade and its reinforcement cause so much harm because of the intimidating and arrogant behaviour of the world’s greatest military power,” Diaz-Canel wrote on social media.
Cuba’s foreign minister, Bruno Rodriguez, said the sanctions measures, which were announced as the island held its traditional May Day celebrations, aim to impose “collective punishment on the Cuban people” and that Cubans would not be intimidated.
Ratcheting up pressure on Cuban government
Jeremy Paner, a former sanctions investigator at the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, said the move was the most significant one for non-American companies since the US embargo against Cuba began decades ago.
“Oil and gas, mining companies, and banks that have carefully segregated their Cuba operations from the United States are no longer protected,” said Paner, who is now a partner at Hughes Hubbard & Reed, a law firm.
The new sanctions are the latest broadside by the Trump administration against Cuba, which the president has repeatedly declared is near a state of collapse.
Under Trump, US forces have launched strikes on boats allegedly carrying drugs off Venezuela and gone into Caracas to seize President Nicolas Maduro. Trump has said, without providing specifics, that “Cuba is next.”
The officials said Trump’s order contained an implicit warning to Cuba, accusing the Havana government of aligning itself with Iran and groups like Hezbollah.
“Cuba provides a permissive environment for hostile foreign intelligence, military, and terrorist operations less than 100 miles from the American homeland,” one official said.
The US has long demanded Cuba open its state-run economy, pay reparations for properties expropriated by the government of former leader Fidel Castro and hold “free and fair” elections. Cuba has said its form of socialist government is not up for negotiation.
The US heaped additional sanctions and pressure on the island early this year, when it halted Venezuelan oil exports to Cuba after ousting Maduro on January 3. Trump later threatened to slap punishing tariffs on any other country that sent crude to Cuba, prompting Mexico, another top supplier, to stop shipments to the island.
The fuel shortage in Cuba has contributed to major national-level blackouts and prompted many foreign airlines to suspend flights to the island.
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