David Allan Coe: “Don’t You Cry”

Country legend David Allan Coe passed away on Wednesday, April 29, 2026. While articles about his life focus on certain songs he wrote, like “Take This Job and Shove It,” and on certain singles, like “Tennessee Whiskey,” “Longhaired Redneck,” and “You Never Even Called Me By My Name,” the man’s vast catalog cannot be summed up by a few songs. And while there will be the usual labels for the Ohio-born Coe, like “Outlaw,” he had a long and complex career full of highs and lows.

And where does one start with David Allan Coe? There were some troubled times, including stints in prison and bankruptcy. But for fans, one has to start with the music. There’s forty-two studio albums, as well as some controversial X-rated independent ones. Among his catalog is some amazing work.

And one way to start is to go back near the beginning. Some of his great songs and recordings came out during the early 1970s before finding wider success and before the rise of Outlaw country. He released his debut album Penitentiary Blues in 1970, including songs he had written in prison.

But before he had much success he worked as a staff songwriter for Window Music publishing, writing songs and creating demos for other artists. In 2005, many of these demos were finally released on For the Soul and for the Mind: Demos of ’71-’74 . Although none of the songs eventually became a hit, as Allmusic notes, they are further evidence that David Allan Coe was a poet.

One of those demos was a song called “Don’t You Cry.” And it seems like a fitting way to say goodbye for now.

Don’t you cry, children;
Don’t you cry
I’ll see you in the sweet bye and bye.

I’ve been staring at tomorrow,
knowing it might never come;
I’ve been talking about salvation,
Thinking I might get me some.

It’s so hard to beat the devil,
When he don’t play by the rules;
And I know that the Savior
Has a special place for fools.

What is your favorite David Allan Coe song? Leave your two cents in the comments.

John Fullbright at Summer Breeze (Concert of the Day)

John Fullbright performed a wonderful set of his songs at the Summer Breeze concert series in Oklahoma in 2025.

John Fullbright at piano

Oklahoma singer-songwriter John Fullbright has an amazing voice that backs up his fantastic songs. While his albums have received some acclaim, he is one of those artists who does not get the national recognition he deserves.

I first discovered his YouTube cover of a Steve Earle song, and I have been following his career, waiting for his next album. I strongly recommend his album Songs as one of the great Americana albums of the last few decades.

While he does not release albums frequently enough to make me happy, he remains active performing around Oklahoma and elsewhere while also helping other artists. B

Fortunately, the camera was rolling during one of his recent performances at the Summer Breeze concert series in Oklahoma on June 29, 2025. Check it out.

Don’t let Fullbright’s everyman appearance fool you. The band rocks and plays blues, but the highlight for me is when Fullbright stands on the stage solo starting around the 47 minute mark, after which he does some songs solo while playing the piano. In these moving songs about love, heartbreak, death, and God, his ragged voice and the emotion conveys a deep power that touches one’s heart directly.

For some bonus John Fullbright, check out him covering two Elvis Presley songs, “Never Been to Spain / Saved.”

What is your favorite John Fullbright song? Leave your two cents in the comments.

The Native American Band Redbone and the Hit Song “Come and Get Your Love”

In 1974, the band Redbone had a top-10 hit with “Come and Get Your Love,” the first song by an all-Native and Mexican-American band to accomplish that feat.

In January 1974, the band Redbone released the single “Come and Get Your Love.” The catchy song, which appeared on the 1973 album Wovoka, rose to number 5 on the Billboard chart by April of that year. Many of those who only heard the song on the radio, though, did not realize the song was making history as the first song by an all-Native and Mexican-American band to have a top 10 hit on the chart.

The man singing lead on the song, Lolly Vegas, also wrote the song and played the guitar and electric sitar on the track. Other members of the band included Tony Bellamy, Peter DePoe and Pat Vegas (Lolly’s brother, who, according to his biography, co-wrote “Come and Get Your Love”).

While their hit song was not a political song, the band recognized the impact of their heritage. On the same album, they included the song “We Were All Wounded at Wounded Knee,” which became a hit in the Europe even as the record company refused to release it as a single in the U.S.

The record company and the band instead released “Come and Get Your Love” as the single. Pat Vegas once explained the song is about more than romantic love: “It’s love all around, in every facet and every part of your being, you know? And that’s the message: What’s the matter with your mind and your sign? Come and get your love. In other words, where you come from and who you are doesn’t matter as much as what you believe, and what you feel.”

If you were around in the 1970s, you knew the song from the radio and from it repeatedly playing in your head. More modern listeners may know the song from its many appearances in movies and TV shows, including Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Avengers: Endgame (2019), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023), and F is for Family (Netflix).

But back on February 22, 1974, Redbone performed “Come and Get Your Love” on NBC’s The Midnight Special. They introduced the song with a traditional Native American dance.

Leave your two cents in the comments.

Anna Tivel’s “Animal Poem” (Song of the Day)

The title track from Anna Tivel’s “Animal Poem” album is a tender bedtime story about the messiness of living.

Anna Tivel, a singer-songwriter from Portland, Oregon, has been recording and performing for more than a decade. Her seventh album Animal Poem was released in August 2025, and has been described as deep “with wisdom into the experience of existence, forgiveness, love for humanity, nature, and reconciliation with mortality.”

On the album, Tivel hoped to capture the spirit of people sitting on a porch playing songs for each other. And she accomplished that goal.

She explained, “Everyone in the studio made it feel so open, made it easy to forget technology and permanence and just play, messy and alive. It’s this vital mess that moves me when I listen now – ghost notes in the high register of the piano, melodic guitar and bass lines briefly interwoven, earthy cymbals breathing, my dog barking. . . . Most of what you hear is just people sitting together in a small room, listening and talking with tenderness and abandon.”

I love the album’s title track, where Tivel spins a number of lessons together into a tribute to living, presented as a poem that one may hear as a bedtime story.

Courage is a tired mom, milk crate and a cardboard sign,
Trying to find a story for her daughter;
This is how the world exists, let me spin it for you kid,
In a way that’s easier to swallow.

Everyone is in a play, characters in constant pain,
Reaching for a way to taste some beauty;
You can be someone who loves, or you can be somebody else;
That’s all there is, you breathe, then you’re not breathing.

Check out “Animal Poem” by Anna Tivel.

Leave your two cents in the comments.

Johnny Blue Skies aka Sturgill Simpson Temporarily Drops New Album: “Mutiny After Midnight”

Sturgill Simpson releases the new album “Mutiny After Midnight” by Johnny Blue Skies & the Dark Clouds.

Sturgill Simpson, who with his previous album started recording as Johnny Blue Skies is releasing a new album backed by the Dark Clouds called Mutiny After Midnight later this month. He announced that the album would only be released on physical media, but, perhaps because there was an early leak, he posted the album’s music on YouTube early for fans to enjoy. Alas, though, the streaming version was only available temporarily (so no longer posted here). Despite the confusing drama around the release, fans still rejoiced.

The album’s cover features a sword in a disco ball with dripping blood, hinting this music is for dancing, influenced by disco. The title track title is a nod toward a certain president’s hat while signaling that the music is about havin fun, “Make America Fuk Again.” While it may seem like Simpson has diverted drastically from his country roots, the album still features his strong songwriting and Simpson has always defied categorization. On first listen the album also seems to be capturing the joy from his recent tours heavily influenced by jam bands.

Simpson is releasing the album Mutiny After Midnight on physical media on March 13, 2026. Buy it, play it loud, and get up and dance.

Leave your two cents in the comments.

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