L.A. is an ungodly shrine to trash and excess. Dozens of great talents have gone to New York to die. But Nashville is the place where all the really bad stuff happens. Welcome to the Country Music Hall of Infamy … / By David Peisner / Blender, March 2007
L.A. is an ungodly shrine to trash and excess. Dozens of great talents have gone to New York to die. But Nashville is the place where all the really bad stuf... more
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Created 03/04/08
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1
David Allan Coe
Ex-con found living in cave!: David Allan Coe was the outlaw even outlaws were leery of. He spent 20 years in prison for offenses including armed robbery, and claimed to have killed a man who threatened him with sexual assault in a prison shower. When a reporter challenged this story, Coe wrote “I’d Like to Kick the Shit Out of You” in his honor. In the ’70s, Coe recorded two albums of X-rated and racist tunes, with titles like “Cum Stains on My Pillow” and “N*gger Fuckers.” Money troubles followed. He lived in a cave in Tennessee after the IRS seized his home in the ’80s, and in 1990, Feds stormed a stage to repossess a guitar right out of Coe’s hands. He recently recorded with members of Pantera and toured with Kid Rock.
“It’s hurt my career, because I’m not a pussy and a yes-man. Nevertheless, I’m the motherfucker who has to live with David Allan Coe the rest of his life.”
2
Keith Urban
Mr. Kidman poses for Playgirl!: Urban’s recent jaunt to Betty Ford shocked those who knew him only as Nicole Kidman’s hunky husband of almost a year, but his closet has skeletons aplenty. When his career stalled in the ’90s, a coke habit reduced him to scouring the floor of a Nashville drug den for crack. After getting clean, Urban posed seminude for Playgirl. According to the Daily Mail, rehab beckoned again in 2002. Then in June 2006, he married Kidman — to the surprise of his former longtime girlfriend, who reportedly described him as a drunk, drug addict and womanizer. According to some reports, his latest rehab is a condition of a prenup he signed at the insistence of Kidman’s drug-demonizing ex, Tom Cruise. Â
“I hate the straight road. I find it very monotonous and boring.”
3
Tracy Lawrence
Cheerleader battered!: Just before releasing a 1991 debut that would spawn four Top 10 singles, Tracy Lawrence was shot four times during a mugging. Three years later, some teenagers gave the star the finger while he was driving; he followed them home and fired his .357 magnum in the air to scare them, precipitating a $4.2 million civil suit. In March 1997, things began looking up: Lawrence married a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. But by September, they’d separated, and by December she’d filed charges against him for allegedly throwing her into a wall, punching and threatening to kill her; his ex-wife’s father later sued him to recover the cost of the wedding, calling it a publicity stunt. Lawrence was eventually convicted of battery and suspended by his record label until he got “his personal matters straight.”
“I made some bad decisions. It just snowballed and one stupid act led to another.”
4
Sara Evans
Star leaves porno pol!: Multiplatinum singer Sara Evans appeared to be living a rags-to-riches fairy tale until she cut her 2006 Dancing With the Stars appearance short to file for divorce. Her official complaint alleged that her husband, former Republican congressional candidate Craig Schelske, kept a stash of porn that included pictures of himself having sex with other women, used Craigslist to solicit threesomes and anal sex, looted the family’s “church tithing” account of $66,500, and had an affair with the nanny. Schelske, in turn, accused Evans of adulterous affairs with, among others, Kenny Chesney.
“I’m in shock.”
5
Ty Herndon
Meth man flashes cop!: In May 1995, Ty Herndon’s debut single went to the top of the country charts. About a month later, he was on his way to play a Texas Police convention when he made a stop in a nearby park, allegedly exposed himself to a man and asked him, “What are you into?” Unfortunately for Herndon, the man was into being an undercover cop conducting a sex-sting operation. When Herndon was searched, the officer found crystal meth in his billfold; he was sentenced to community service and a $1,000 fine. Rehab followed but didn’t really take: Herndon scored several more big hits in the late ’90s, but after ditching Nashville for Hollywood, his career bottomed out and he reacquainted himself with his old friend crystal meth. In 2004, he was coaxed back into rehab by his friends and relatives.
“When you start digging up your own truths and find out what’s going on — that you’re a self-centered, selfish [expletive] — it’s really hard to take a look at that.”
6
George Jones
“Possum” goes to funny farm!: George Jones’s endless string of country hits made him a star, but his wanton misbehavior made him a legend. At 20, he got stabbed in the belly after jumping the repo man who’d come for his car. His renowned boozing through the ’60s and ’70s led frequently to gunplay, fisticuffs and enough missed concerts to earn him the sobriquet “No Show” Jones. After his tumultuous six-year marriage to Tammy Wynette ended in 1975, “the Possum” added coke to his repertoire. By the decade’s end, he’d been accused of punching his fiancée in the face and trying to shoot his best friend, and was eventually committed to a mental hospital. After starring in a televised police chase in the early ’80s, he finally sobered up — but tumbled off the wagon in 1999, drunkenly wrecking his SUV and puncturing a lung. Surprisingly he lived and recently cut an album with fellow survivor Merle Haggard.
“If it appeals to the most lowdown kind of human behavior, you name it and I’ve done it.”
7
Johnny Paycheck
Accused rapist in sky-high brawl!: The future Johnny Paycheck ditched home at 15 and later joined the Navy, where the five-foot-five menace got two years in the brig for nearly crushing the skull of a superior officer in a fistfight. In 1958, he made his way to Nashville, where he became a player in country’s burgeoning outlaw movement — and an incorrigible drunk. The ’70s brought not only Paycheck’s biggest hit (“Take This Job and Shove It”) but also a paternity suit, bankruptcy and a prison sentence for check forgery. A scuffle aboard a Frontier Airlines plane in 1982 resulted in a $175,000 civil judgment against him. The year before, he was accused of raping a 12-year-old girl and pleaded no contest to a lesser charge; in 1985, he shot a man in a bar brawl and was locked up for two years. He died in 2003 at 64.
“The hardships that I put on my family — all of this was due to one thing only: my stupidity.”
8
Spade Cooley
Sex-cult wife murdered!: Now almost forgotten, in the ’40s Spade Cooley was known as the King of Western Swing. But Cooley was also a heavy drinker with a jealous streak and an appalling temper; he once tried to toss a female vocalist off the Santa Monica pier because she had quit his band. In 1961, convinced that his wife, Ella Mae, had joined a sex cult and had an affair with Roy Rogers, he attacked her in their home. He beat her, choked her and burned her with cigarettes in front of their 14-year-old daughter. Ella Mae was dead upon arrival at the hospital. Convicted of murder, Cooley was granted a three-day prison furlough in 1969 to play a benefit concert. After performing, he strode offstage and died of a heart attack.
“Rockets ran through my brain when Ella Mae told me of her desire to join a free-love cult. I must have hurt her terrible.”
9
Steve Earle
Crackhead marries seven times!: After his 1986 Guitar Town topped the charts, Steve Earle began taking as much crack, smack and Dilaudid as he could afford. At the end of the ’80s, he picked up two assault charges and quit music to hang around South Nashville crack houses. In July 1994, he was released on bond after a drug bust and later that day was caught smoking crack and was arrested again — “still in the fucking tie I’d been wearing in court,” he said. After four months in prison, he finally got clean; he recently married — for the seventh time.
“However bad anyone thinks it was, the truth is worse.”
10
Mindy McCready
Drunk driver botches suicide! Twice!: Mindy McCready’s 1996 debut sold 2 million copies. But after that, her life slowly declined: She was arrested for buying OxyContin with a fake prescription in August 2004, and again in May 2005 for a suspected DUI. Then her ex-boyfriend Billy McKnight — who’d twice before sent McCready to the ER — reportedly broke down her bedroom door and choked her nearly to death. McKnight was locked up, and McCready lit out for Arizona with a con man and later was charged in a scheme to help him obtain two luxury boats. She reconciled with McKnight, but after discovering she was pregnant with his baby, made two suicide attempts in three months. She gave birth in March 2006; McKnight is now disputing his paternity.
“I feel embarrassed about the decisions I’ve made.”
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