The Roanoke Times | File 1983

David Allan Coe performs on the stage of the Roanoke Civic Center auditorium, which is now the Performing Arts Theatre.

David Allan Coe is coming back to play at the Roanoke Performing Arts Theatre on Thursday, which prompts this flashback: It was 1983, and I was a young, impressionable reporter for The Roanoke Times covering, among other things, the music beat.

And who is David Allan Coe, you might ask?

His fame is too dim for him to be called a star, and he's more of a rumor than a legend. But he wrote the hit that Johnny Paycheck made famous -- "Take This Job and Shove It" -- and a lot of other beautiful country songs that contrast with his bad boy "outlaw" image.

I'd been a fan of Coe since my college days -- you didn't find many college kids listening to outlaw country in the disco era of the '70s, by the way. So when I found out he was coming to town, well, I was pretty excited.

I was also curious, as any good journalist ought to be.

Why was Coe booked at something on Plantation Road called the Roanoke Public Warehouse? And what was the Roanoke Public Warehouse anyway?

In fact, something close to that was how I started the lead of my story that ran in the Extra section on the Tuesday before the Sunday night show.

As it turned out, the Roanoke building commissioner had the same question I did, except he had a power I didn't have: He could shut things down.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

You see, the concert was being promoted not by some high-rolling concert promoter but by one of Coe's former bodyguards -- a burly fellow who went by the name "Wise Man" and who also just happened to be president of the Roanoke chapter of the Pagans motorcycle gang. (That's the type of reference that apparently looks good on a resume if you want to be a bodyguard for a country outlaw singer.)

The Pagans, it should be noted, are said to make the Hells Angels look like choir boys. (Not necessarily NICE choir boys, mind you, but you get the idea.)

Wise Man -- and let's stick with his moniker here, for reasons we'll get to later -- freely admitted why he booked the warehouse: It was cheap, cheaper than any other venue he could find.

Problem was, as soon as my story hit the streets, people started lining up to get inside the warehouse. Specifically, city officials fretting about things such as "occupancy permits" and "emergency exits." In plain point of fact, the building was zoned to be a warehouse, not a performance space. What the promoter saw as a cheap venue, city officials saw as a fire hazard.

Late on the Friday before the show, the word came down from the city: No show.

Suddenly, I had a hot story on my hands.

But when I called Wise Man for comment on what he was going to do now that the city had shut him down, well, let's just say Wise Man did not appreciate the concept of "the public's right to know." He didn't exactly threaten me. Then again, when a member of the Pagan motorcycle gang says it would ruin him if I print the story and he wouldn't appreciate such a thing, well, the imagination does tend to run a bit wild, now doesn't it?

I found out later that Wise Man and several of his fellow Pagans were waiting outside the newspaper building that night, waiting for the first papers to roll off the press and be put out for sale in the box outside. He was convinced my story was going to put him out of business.

Instead, my story had the opposite effect: It made Roanoke city officials look clueless. They were spot on, of course, that the warehouse wasn't a performance space -- it's hard to argue with their concern over public safety.

However, the story also pointed out the concert had been advertised for WEEKS -- and Wise Man had, in fact, told the city what he planned to do when he applied for his business license several MONTHS previous to that.

Why were the safety officials just now finding out all this?

Suddenly, the Pagans were no longer looking to whip my butt, or any other part of my corpus. Instead, they were thanking me because I'd apparently embarrassed city officials so much that they felt forced to help find the promoter another venue on very short notice.

The day before the show, the city offered up the Performing Arts Theatre, then called simply "the auditorium."

The plush seats of the auditorium were more accustomed to well-mannered symphony-goers than leather-clad motorcycle gangs, but, hey, who's complaining? The city apparently gave Wise Man a sweetheart deal on the place. Plus, the promoter gloated before the show, "we got so much free publicity over this controversy that it just might turn out."

On concert night, more than 800 people showed up for the show, some coming from as far away as Richmond. The show sizzled. That's what it said in the review, which I wrote, so I have to take my own word for it.

Unfortunately, Wise Man had hoped for 2,000 people -- a completely unrealistic number, in the estimation of anyone who's covered music in Roanoke.

Civic center officials told me later the promoter lost a bundle on the show.

A year later, Wise Man was back in the news, charged with other Pagans with running a multistate drug ring. Our coverage at the time described it as "a federal effort to destroy the Pagans motorcycle gang drug empire in Virginia."

Wise Man denied any involvement with drugs but was convicted anyway, and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

I've often wondered if the money he lost on the David Allan Coe show had anything to do with that.

Federal records show Wise Man got out in 1990.

I wonder if he'll be at Thursday's show.