 With his stripped-down approach to
traditional honky tonk and Bakersfield country,
Dwight Yoakam helped return country music to its roots
in the late '80s. Like his idols
Buck Owens,
Merle Haggard, and
Hank Williams,
Dwight Yoakam never played by Nashville's rules; consequently,
he never dominated the charts like his contemporary
Randy Travis. Then again,
Travis never played around with the sound and style of
country music like
Dwight Yoakam. On each of his records, he twists around the
form enough to make it seem like he doesn't respect all of
country's traditions. Appropriately, his core audience was
composed mainly of roots rock and rock & roll fans, not the
mainstream country audience. Nevertheless, he was frequently
able to chart in the country Top Ten, and he remained one of
the most respected and adventurous recording country artists
well into the '90s.
Born in Kentucky but raised in Ohio,
Dwight Yoakam learned how to play guitar at the age of six. As
a child, he listened to his mother's record collection,
honing in on the traditional country of
Hank Williams and
Johnny Cash, as well as the Bakersfield honky tonk of
Buck Owens. When he was in high school,
Dwight Yoakam played with a variety of bands, playing
everything from country to rock & roll. After completing
high school,
Dwight Yoakam briefly attended Ohio State University, but he
dropped out and moved to Nashville in the late '70s with the
intent of becoming a recording artist.
Dwight Yoakam released an independent EP, A Town South of
Bakersfield, in 1984, which received substantial airplay on
Los Angeles college and alternative radio stations. The EP
also helped him land a record contract with Reprise Records.
Dwight Yoakam's full-length debut album, Guitars, Cadillacs,
Etc., Etc., was released in 1986 and was an instant
sensation. Rock and country critics praised it and it earned
airplay on college stations across America. More
importantly, it was a hit on the country charts, as its
first single, a cover of
Johnny Horton's "Honky Tonk Man," climbed to number
three in the spring, followed by the number four "Guitars,
Cadillacs" in the summer. The album would eventually go
platinum.
Hillbilly Deluxe,
Dwight Yoakam's 1987 follow-up, was equally successful,
spawning four Top Ten hits: "Little Sister," "Little Ways,"
"Please, Please Baby," and "Always Late with Your Kisses."
In 1988,
Dwight Yoakam had his first number one hit with "Streets of
Bakersfield," a cover of a
Buck Owens song recorded with
Owens himself. It was the first single off his third
album, Buenos Noches from a Lonely Room, which continued his
streak of Top Ten hits. "I Sang Dixie," the album's second
single, went to number one, and "I Got You" reached number
five. In 1989,
Dwight Yoakam released a compilation album, Just Lookin' for a
Hit, which went gold. "Long White Cadillac," taken from the
collection, stalled at number 35 in the fall of 1989.
Although his 1990 album If There Was a Way didn't have as
many Top Ten hits, it was a major success; it was his first
album since his debut to go platinum. This Time, released in
the spring of 1993, was an even bigger hit, spawning three
number two singles -- "Ain't That Lonely Yet," "A Thousand
Miles from Nowhere," and "Fast as You" -- and going
platinum. After its release,
Dwight Yoakam was silent for two years, returning in the summer
of 1995 with Dwight Live, which didn't set the charts on
fire. In the fall of that year, he released his sixth album,
Gone, which went gold by the spring of 1996, although it
didn't produce any major country hits. After 1997's Under
the Covers, a collection of cover songs,
Dwight Yoakam returned with the all-new A Long Way Home in
1998. Another compilation, Last Chance for a Thousand Years:
Greatest Hits from the '90s, was released in 1999; its newly
recorded version of
Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" became
Dwight Yoakam's biggest hit in six years, even hitting the
lower reaches of the pop charts thanks to its exposure in a
khakis commercial. Two albums followed in 2000:
dwightyoakamacoustic.net, a bare-bones, all-acoustic
revisitation of
Dwight Yoakam's back catalog; and the more standard studio
project Tomorrow's Sounds Today, which featured further
collaborations with
Buck Owens and a cover of
Cheap Trick's "I Want You to Want Me."
In 2001,
Dwight Yoakam debuted as a writer and director, also issuing
the soundtrack South of Heaven, West of Hell to accompany
it. Two years later, he debuted on a new label (Audium) with
Population Me, while Reprise issued the compilation In
Others' Words to compete with it. In 2004 he released
Dwight's Used Records, a 14-track anthology of duets that
appeared on other artists' albums, unreleased covers, and
cuts
Dwight Yoakam contributed to various tribute compilations. An
album of all new material, the self-produced Blame the Vain,
followed in 2005 along with the live album Live from Austin,
TX. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
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