Dwight Yoakam - the sentence is..?

This guy has always had a certain crossover-appeal, hasn't he, all the while maintaining his somewhat traditional image? Any love for the man and his jeans?

Trad country has and always will maintain a crossover appeal, but a lot of Yoakam's appeal outside of the regular country realm is that he just seems like a cool dude and an engaging performer. He's good at going big and he's good at dialing back and showing tenderness, which is something missing in a lot of contemporary country (a medium based on loudness and hooks).

I think you're spot on. And those jeans...

Plus, he does great covers. IMO, his I Want You to Want Me is way superior to Cheap Trick's.

I have his first three albums (Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc., which is a fantastic album title btw, Hillbilly Deluxe and Buenas Noches From A Lonely Room) and they're great. I lose track after that, but I have his most recent one, too, Dwight Sings Buck (Owens), and that's really solid, too.

I like pretty much every Dwight record up through "Gone." And then it was mostly just a matter of losing track. When his acting career took off, and when his own directing, etc. career ("career") distracted him, it seemed like he lost interest in music for a while. Certainly there suddenly seemed to be a lot of cover albums, b-sides collections, soundtracks, unplugged discs, hits collections and a boxed set, all in a row.

He is a great actor, though. Beyond perfect in "Sling Blade," "The Newton Boys," "Panic Room." Seem to recall him being funny in "Wedding Crashers" (?), don't remember him in "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada." but "Wedding Crashers" also started his annoying friendship with Vince Vaughan.

This is my favorite music thing he's ever done, btw. I remember seeing it during the tv broadcast and being awestruck by it. Almost six years later, I still go check out the youtube of it and it does the same trick every time. They need to release that tribute concert on cd, ffs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqNKJm2EWv4

That's really beautiful.

Makes you wonder, though, if it's really a tribute to June & Johnny, or to Hardin's song? I guess it doesn't really matter, but I really like how classics like this live on, through all the different versions that are done.

I listened to "Nothing" over and over again when I was 8 until my mom told me to stop.

He was my gateway into country music back in the late 1980s, on the advice of a friend who was mostly into punk rock. Apparently Yoakam opened for Husker Du? He was sold as an alternative to pop country like Kenny Rogers, which turns out to have been pretty savvy: when I arrived in Texas in the early 90s a local mall had a store named "Guitar, Cadillacs" selling "authentic" Texas-y chintz. The albums don't sound radical to me now: the songs with Buck Owens & Johnny Cash, murder ballads... Gone was a pretty tight record iirc, a bunch of tightly honed songs, get in, do their thing, get out quickly: I always thought it was like an early Beatles album that way.

A good friend who doesn't, er, usually buy country records loves Guitar, Cadillacs, and, tbh, that's why I haven't investigated further.

The title track from Buenos Noches From a Lonely Room is pretty great.

I need some help with the nineties albums though. Is that comp The Very Best worth owning?

Yoakam is one of the handful of artists for whom I go the full-on "completist" route, so I'll go ahead and lay out that bias up front.

The two-disc The Very Best Of comp is solid and would definitely be worth picking up for those in the market for his singles. Which is a fine thing to be in the market for, since Yoakam is easily the most consistent singles artist from his generation of country acts. It includes the majority of his big radio hits, some on-point covers, and "The Back of Your Hand," which is my favorite of his ballads.

Of his studio albums, A Long Way Home and Tomorrow's Sounds Today are the thinnest, but they'd both still rate among the strongest country albums of their respective years. They just aren't up to Yoakam's typical standards, and the singles from those albums are on that best-of comp.

Gone and Blame the Vain are his two most ambitious albums from a production standpoint, and he's smart and self-aware enough to know what kinds of stylistic experiments fit in his overall aesthetic. I'd say they're his two best overall albums, but that's really a matter of splitting hairs.

"Ain't That Lonely Yet" would be great if the drumming weren't so flat.

I've been on quite a Yoakam kick. If There Was a Way drifts in the middle before righting itself with its trio of terrific closers. This Time boasts the best singles qua singles, but rhythmically they're inert ("A Thousand Miles From Nowhere," "Ain't That Lonely Yet").

That's a nice point, that they're rhythmically inert. I'd never thought of them that way before. Might he not say in their defense that that's the point, that the songs depict inertness, and by giving that to the rhythm it lets him dance atop that with enough frills to keep things interesting? In country music there's a long tradition of this: you want the beat to sound like a train, going on and on along a long expanse of the heart.

It doesn't stop those singles from working like motherfuckers, but "Streets of Bakersfield" and "You're The One" moved, y'know? The emphasis shifts on the later singles. If "Ain't That Lonely Yet" works, all credit to Yoakam's vocal; he's never sung better.

He knows how to swing. At the time I thought of those records as retro but it's funny how those kinds of judgments slip away, as the horizon of the now slips. And I understand the self-reflexivity of country music better now too, and appreciate it too. I guess that's just another way of making the point that genres have their own values, and for all of Dwight's outsider image, he knew those values, so that when he played with them it wasn't to break on through but rather to give them new life.

Population Me is damn good, and so damn fleet and efficient.

Not a great recording, but I really love this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPFuTUCQjgI

New album out, "3 Pears" and it's fucking great!

This doesn't actually come out until Tuesday 9/18 - it was on the shelf at my local Target this morning, though, and/but when I brought it to the register they wouldn't sell it to me! Bastards...

Aha, different dates in Europe and the US, then. It was released in Norway on Friday. You're in for a treat. He sounds very hungry now. It's sort of a comeback, almost, as it's been7 years since his last album.

yeah, it's been ages! Didn't even know a new album was in the works! Looking forward..

Wait, Beck is on this thing? That doesn't bode well.

I lost track of Yoakam somewhere in the late '90s, maybe around "Long Way Home," because suddenly there was this endless stream of best-ofs, compilations, acoustic re-makes, boxed sets, Christmas albums and the like, like he was treading water while dealing with movie stuff. Not sure I heard "Population Me" and "Blame the Vain." Were they any good? I'm sure "Dwight Sings Buck" was solid, but at the same time it seemed like another stopgap move. Does he even really tour anymore?

my introduction to him was perhaps the most horribly titled record of all time: dwightyoakamacoustic.net

it's pretty grebt tho

Population Me is a damn good album.

I had a hunch; Yoakam doesn't really have many (any?) misfires. But he lost control of the direction of his career there for a while. Reminded me of this run of Nanci Griffith collections - best ofs, covers, orchestra, rarities, Christmas - that similarly overshadowed her actual comeback album. Not that I really like her or equate her with Yoakam. Just a similar mess of a discography.

Listening to the new one on Spotify now. It really is pretty damn good.

I know. Been playing it lots the last few days. And Josh, re your question a few posts up, he does tour, atleast a bit. Saw him in Oslo in June. Pretty tight show, but expensive as hell. Tickets $ 100 plus.

If I had a big giraffe, he'd have to take a real long bath, and that's why waterfalls are really neat

He tore shit up on Letterman a few weeks ago and I almost bought the new album immediately afterwards, but the 30 second previews on Amazon made me hesitate. Will probably cave and get Spotify eventually for situations like this.

don't hesitate! the whole thing sounds so so rich and full

one of the year's best imo.

and, yeah, "Waterfall" (the one ship alludes to) and "Rock It All Away" are as good as anything he's done -- plus, he's playing all the guitar and I don't even miss Pete Anderson.

OK, I'm convinced; will definitely check this out!

bad ass:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzChx-3sqXk

on Kimmel tonight!

"Missing Heart" is the best song he's ever written. I've been waiting for him to do a gut-level personal song.

And with the sound of 3 Pears he re/invented hard country for the digital age.

"Nothing But Love"!

This 1987 Betsy Layne, KY Yoakam concert recording is pretty great so far.
I wonder how many of the Kentuckians present at the show knew that the players were longtime Angelenos. I wonder if they could hear that the music had a distinctly Californian flavor.

http://www.lostonmyowntrack.com/Dwight-Audio/BetsyLayne1987/

Dwight's southern Ohio roots get him Kentucky cred.

Oh I know, I'm not questioning his credentials- I just know that when I first listened to him I thought he had such a deep country sound. I sure never would have guessed that it came from LA.

Close to a year later,'3 Pears' still sounds fucking amazing. I play it all the time. What a great record!

otm! I played it in the car last week.

Listening to 3 Pears right now for the first time. Whatta record!

New song on Soundcloud:

http://soundcloud.com/via-records/liar

Man, Dwight, why don't you try playing a few places that aren't casinos so that some of us under the age of 60 can go see you.

He's never released a particularly bad song or album, has he?

Not to my knowledge he hasn't. Remarkably consistent dude. Over the last few years he has, sort of stealthily, become one of my favorite artists.

Whoa, this sounds like mid-80s Mellencamp.

Yeah, it's a little more "rock" than I was expecting (and not as joyously weird, like 3 Pears), but I'm 100% on board.

the Dwight Sings Buck album is killer and the drummer completely goes OFF

There are a million recordings of this song but I come back to this one with Dwight & Alison Krauss.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1XDkeo-vtU

Slept on:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IToWBx_luPA

xp YES! I can't believe they never released that version with him and Alison Krauss.

No new album discussion? It's great.

http://www.spin.com/2015/04/review-dwight-yoakam-second-hand-heart/

I love this album. More Rock than Country tho. I need to listen to more Dwight Yoakam, I think.

What are the best Dwight Yoakam albums?

If There Was a Way and This Time, but you can't go wrong between 1986 and 1995.

Just get this box with his first five: http://www.amazon.com/Original-Album-Dwight-Yoakam/dp/B008M4HBFI

love the first album

Was it this thread or somewhere else that reminded me he used to date Sharon Stone, who I believe described dating him as like dating an ashtray or a pile of dirt or something like that.

haha, that's great PR for a country singer. "yeah, i tried dating a movie star, but she thought i was just some lowly commoner."

Guitars, Cadillacs was my first DY album and will always be my sentimental favorite, but This Time is killer and the last few have been wonderful, especially 3 Pears, he's had great music in every phase of his career

A top twenty-five of this man's amazing tunes.

Second Hand Heart and Nothing are really great. Been listening to a lot fo Yoakam lately.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6xWgbb58go
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeuRMOkaohY

pretty crazy that his late career albums are as good as they are.

otm

He’s one of the better commentators in the Ken Burns Country doc.

'if there was a way' has a perfect album cover. the only use of copperplate gothic typeface ive ever approved of.
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51Zj-zREJ1L._SX355_.jpg

Yet to Succeed has been called out a couple times itt and it's really sublime. His phrasing on that is masterful.

Also is that a marimba in the mix of that song?

He's so good, yet never seems to tour much outside of the casino circuit.

Man, I totally forgot he dated Sharon Stone.

great actor too. he excels at playing sadistic creeps.

All the original albums that I've heard were worth checking out, but the best gateway for his 80s seems to be Just Lookin' For a Hit, 90s Last Chance For A Thousand Years, best career overview (up through early 00s, I think) the Rhino Very Best of. At about the same time, I got into the all-new Population Me quite a bit, although it took several spins (most of which I wouldn't have bothered with if he hadn't gotten several hooks into me right away). Ditto Blame The Vain, from '05 or '06---but the first this-century DY to grab and keep me all the way through first listen was this, as noted on Rolling Country 2013 and the Nashville Scene ballot:
God, 3 Pears is great. Grabbed me right away---on MySpace, but great sound (via Koss UR40 headphones). Dwight Yoakam assimilates the mid-60s back-and-forth of country, rock, some Latin in both, from the Southwestern US to UK and back: well, mostly assimilated, not too quote-y, though he does make good use of a certain Beatles chorus, Tommy James--mostly subliminal Orbison, Owens, Everlys (even multiple Dwights for a moment on one track), early Gram Parsons, and right from the latter to "Heart of Mine", the best southwest of Liverpool garage pop country that the young Sir Douglas Quintet never did. Circumspect flash, he is a character actor after all, knows not to wink and the audience, but when to whoop, and the wave of music the sorrowfully moralistic, left-behind hubby rides though "Dim Lights, Thick Smoke" has a faithful scream inside. Also like what I hoped the Mavericks' album would sound like in the wake of "Oh What A Crying Shame", but this is much more consistent. "Waterfall" sounds like a children's song, more imaginative than sentimental, but the line about babies being born even in a war, is that something you'd tell a kid? Some kids would know, would be there to agree with you, no Pope Daddyio. Couple tracks toward the end I could live without, but it perks up again. If Tom T. Hall left Kentucky, and hung a left for Hollywood on his way back to Nashville or Murfreesboro, Yoakam might have a good dream about it, right before starting this album.

Then from 2015:
Dwight Yoakam's Second Hand Heart didn't immediately flip me into the back of a pickup truck, not like 3 Pears, but it sure does build. First three tracks seem a tad studious, which shouldn't be necessary after 14 previous albums drawing on mid-60s Buck Owens/Beatles crosstalk, and what the latter, at least, drew on from the Everlys x various Southwestern crossover artists. But then he starts stretching and flexing the Sunbelt accents, adding Alabama-style syllables to a droll drawl over a "She's About A Mover"-type riff, dropping in some Jordanaires-type vocal encouragement, just for a second ( like some other fleet touches, on this and other tracks: acoustic guitar back here, steel over thar), and the arc of the set really takes off, doesn't let go. For instance, "Man of Constant Sorrow," with a vocal not that far from old timey versions, maybe a little faster---or that's just an illusion created by the slamming electric rhythm tracks, which fit perfectly, without jiving up the high lonesome vibe---they just respond, in a plugged-in, open-flap tent revival way: "Tell us how lost we all are, Brother, that's the first step to bein' found!" (Or maybe just, "Rave on, let it bleed, I'm with ya.")
Yoakam continues to crank up his rock and country connections while passing through, getting cooler and hotter at the same time, eventually ending with a ballad, but one with a beat; sounds like he's been listening to New Morning, the way Dylan was maybe listening to Van Morrison around the time of NM (long enough to concur with an overall sense of the bucolic/boondocks consolations, and the short sharp outbursts of "If Not For You," at least).

2016:
Dwight Yoakam, Swimmin' Pools, Movie Stars…: he's high & lonesome, but not too thin, nasal or tight, got that bluesier side of bluegrass, flexible enough for all the twists and turns of yonder Hollywood and Beverly Hills, also almost a bit of blue yodel, at appropriate intervals. Like the occasional guest voices too, would like more or any females, since female voices have kept me listening to contemporary bluegrass, somewhut (also to contemporary punk-new-wave-etc).
Took me a couple of tracks to focus, but particular faves so far incl. "Listen", which is a little slower than usual and has kind of an Everlys feel, also Dolly Parton's"Two Doors Down", with the barstool as tombstone and/or urn: seems like that honky tonk bluegrass I've always wondered about (title of an early Ricky Skaggs album, but considering how pious he got and maybe already was, hard to picture him in such a place). Good if not strictly necessary revamp of "Guitars Cadillacs and Hillbilly Music", also, fave of all so far is "Purple Rain", now with a brisker, still pensive bluegrass cadence, reminding me a little of Hindu Love Gods' version of "Raspberry Beret."
(Would like to hear Willie sing "Purple Rain" at the original tempo(Also him and/or Yoakam doing "Pale Blue Eyes", but that's another matter.
The ideel "PBE" would involve Lee Ann Womack (what the heck, she's gone almost that far, like with Marc Ribot's "Meds").

3 pears sounded great to me today on first listen.

this is so simple but still very effective
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzDgd3Fl0IY

He's playing Terminal 5 in NYC in a couple of weeks.

I got into his stuff on the back of those last two (brilliant ) albums

The string of albums he did with Pete Anderson are pretty much all killer.

He's a fantastic duet partner at live shows. However don't recall him doing many duets on his albums.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIsqN4BTvuw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lw0gdKJ5mpw

Well, there's the stuff with Buck, of course.

right... there's that of course

timely (or coincidental) revive - just learned on Twitter that it's Dwight's birthday today. Happy birthday, Dwight!

ha, purely coincidence! just been on a dwight deep dive and had to share.

Been obsessing over "Sorry You Asked?" lately.

the trumpet into the key shift >>>

weird choice on the fade out tho

'Nothing' might just be my favorite song of his thus far
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVrCmg5Q6rw

Good video, too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeuRMOkaohY

weird choice on the fade out tho

I like that! It's funny and implies the song will just keep going, adding more tmi, and you'll really be sorry you asked. I get the feeling the next (unheard) verse is about their waning sex life.

Blame the vane.

love this. melody is very climson and clover
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzChx-3sqXk

^ came here to post about this song. what a jam!

The bar played “turn it on, turn it up, turn me loose” last weekend and I’ve hardly had anything else on my mind since then

«Lonely moves here and there.
Sometimes it stays in one place and just stares.»

Love him so much.