David Allan Coe: Requiem For A Harlequin

David Allan Coe's second album, the followup to his wonderful blues album "Penitentiary Blues", is "Requiem for a Harlequin". A unique album, and the last album before he would start making country albums, Requiem was released without song titles. On side one there is "The Beginning" and side two is "The End". Only available on vinyl and long out of print, it is a very expensive record if you can find it. Luckily for us, it is readily available on MP3 and Youtube.

Requiem for a Harlequin is essentially one long conceptual album, without individual tracks. A gritty and bleak tale of urban life, growing up in what he calls "the asphalt jungle". More music backed poetry than songs, the music changes from mellow finger-picked guitar, to rollicking honky-tonk, to more abstract experiments. This album reminds me a little of a alternate reality Gil-Scott Heron's Small Talk. Almost a country-proto-rap. It's too bad that Coe never returned to this sort of experimentation. A sequel to Requiem recorded near the end of a career would be an excellent bookend to this album written near the beginning.

Better than further describe the album, I recommend to just listen to it. It's under a half hour, and it's worth every minute.