Darlin', Darlin

Darlin', Darlin' is an album released by the country musician David Allan Coe on Columbia Records in 1985.

Recording
The album is best remembered for its lead off single, "She Used to Love Me a Lot". It was released in December 1984 and peaked at #11 on both the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles chart and the Canadian RPM Country Tracks chart. (A version of the song by Johnny Cash was recorded in the early 1980s, but remained unreleased until 2014.) The song tells the story of a chance meeting between two ex-lovers at "the Silver Spoon Café" but when the man tries to rekindle the romance, she dismisses him in the same cavalier way he did her years earlier. It was written by Dennis Morgan, Charles Quillen and Kye Fleming, as Coe, who continued to write songs of high quality, nonetheless relied on outside writers to get him in the charts ("The Ride", "Mona Lisa Lost Her Smile") as the decade rolled on.

Darlin’, Darlin’ contains mostly cover versions of songs, but Coe’s incredible versatility as an interpretive singer comes to the fore on his renditions of Smokey Robinson's "My Girl" (an outtake from the previous album Just Divorced) and J.J. Cale's "Call Me the Breeze", although most of the LP is rooted in traditional country music. Like many before him, Coe tries his vocal hand at the standard "My Elusive Dreams", which was co-written by his producer Billy Sherrill and was most famously recorded by David Houston and Tammy Wynette in 1967. Sherrill's most famous client, George Jones, performs the recitation on Dean Dillon's "Don’t Cry Darlin’", which was released as a single and peaked at #29. Jones, who at the time of the recording was finally becoming sober after a career-long bender, adds authenticity to the story of a man who is "drunk, totally drained, on the verge of going crazy" and "on the edge of insane". Coe joined Jones onstage at the inaugural Farm Aid that year, taking a chorus with Jones on his hit "Tennessee Whiskey", which Coe recorded first in 1981.

Uncharacteristically, Coe only contributes two original songs to the set, the gospel song "Mary Go Round (About the Birth of Jesus)" and "For Lovers Only", the fourth and final in a series of songs that appeared on his last three LPs. Thom Jurek of AllMusic observes, "Musically, this is a big production number - even for Billy Sherrill. There are keyboards winding through everything, big backing vocals, and layered pedal steel and electric guitars."

Reception
Darlin’, Darlin’ reached #22 on the country albums chart. AllMusic says that "…as a singer's recording, as odd as some of the material choices are, it works and works well - check Sharon Rice's 'Too Close to Home' with keyboard and saxophone solos, but it's Coe's voice that carries the day. This is not the best place for the curious to begin with DAC, but for those who are die-hard fans, this is an essential recording".

Track listing

 * 1) ”She Used to Love Me a Lot” (R.K. Fleming/D. Morgan/C. Quillen)
 * 2) ”You’re the Only Song I Sing Today” (M. Brantley/B. Rabin)
 * 3) ”Too Close to Home” (Sharon Rice)
 * 4) ”My Elusive Dreams” (Curly Putman/Billy Sherrill)
 * 5) ”Mary Go Round (About the Birth of Jesus)” (David Allan Coe)
 * 6) ”Don’t Cry Darlin’ (with George Jones) (Dean Dillon)
 * 7) ”She Ain’t You”
 * 8) ”My Girl” (Smokey Robinson/Ronald White)
 * 9) ”Call Me the Breeze” (J.J. Cale)
 * 10) ”For Lovers Only” (Coe)

Personnel

 * Vocals – David Allan Coe
 * Backing vocals: Doug Clements, Hurshel Wiginton, James Ferguson, Lori Westerman Brooks, Louis Nunley, Martha Adcock, Wendy Suits
 * Steel guitar – Pete Drake
 * Keyboards – Bobby Wood, Hargus Robbins, Steve Davidowski
 * Harmonica – Steve McMillan
 * Guitar – David Allan Coe, Dale Sellers, Billy Sanford, Martha Adcock, Pete Bordonali, Edward Adcock
 * Drums – Buddy Harmon, Jerry Carrigan, Jerry Kroon
 * Bass – Harry Strzelecki, Michael Leech
 * Strings – The “A” Strings
 * Musician – Ron Reynolds