Dwight Yoakam
Dwight David Yoakam is an American singer-songwriter, actor, and filmmaker. He first achieved mainstream attention in 1986 with the release of his debut album Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc.. Yoakam had considerable success throughout the late 1980s onward, with a total of ten studio albums for Reprise Records. Later projects have been released on Audium, New West, Warner, Sugar Hill Records, and Thirty Tigers.
His first three albumsGuitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc., Hillbilly Deluxe, and Buenas Noches from a Lonely Roomall reached number one on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. Yoakam also has two number-one singles on Hot Country Songs with "Streets of Bakersfield" and "I Sang Dixie", and twelve additional top-ten hits. He has won two Grammy Awards and one Academy of Country Music award. 1993's This Time is his most commercially successful album, having been certified triple-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.
Yoakam's musical style draws from a wide variety of influences including alternative country, neotraditional country, honky-tonk, rock, and the Bakersfield sound. He is known for his distinctive tenor singing voice and unconventional image. Although he has a large number of songs written by himself, he has also had successful cover songs by a wide range of artists including Johnny Horton, Elvis Presley, Cheap Trick, the Blasters, Lefty Frizzell, and Queen. Artists with whom he has collaborated include Beck, John Mellencamp, k.d. lang, Ralph Stanley, and members of Alison Krauss & Union Station. His albums featured production and lead guitar work by Pete Anderson until the beginning of the 21st century.
As an actor, Yoakam has appeared in the movies Red Rock West, Sling Blade, Panic Room, and Wedding Crashers, as well as South of Heaven, West of Hell, which he wrote and directed. He also appeared in the TV series P.S. I Luv U and Under the Dome, as well as the Amazon Prime Video original series Goliath.
Biography
Dwight David Yoakam was born October 23, 1956, in Pikeville, Kentucky. He is the eldest of three children to Ruth and David Yoakam. At the time of Yoakam's birth, his father was serving in the United States Army. After David Yoakam was discharged from the Army, the Yoakams moved to Columbus, Ohio. By this point, the couple had a second son named Ronald and a daughter named Kimberly. Meanwhile, David supported his family by working at a Westinghouse Electric Corporation factory and later by ownership of a Texaco gas station. Yoakam's father had acquired a guitar manufactured by the Kay Musical Instrument Company while in the Army, and gave it to Yoakam after being unable to learn to play it himself. Although Yoakam later broke this guitar, he received another one as a Christmas present while he was in the fourth grade. He also wrote his first song around this point. As a child, Yoakam took influence from the music that his parents listened to on records as well as WMNI, then an AM country music radio station in Columbus. Among these records were compilations by Johnny Cash and Johnny Horton. According to his mother, the family would also sing songs to each other when on road trips to visit Yoakam's maternal grandparents. Yoakam himself also stated that he was influenced by rock and roll acts he had seen on television, such as Elvis Presley.The Yoakam family moved to another neighborhood of Columbus in 1968, where Yoakam attended Northland High School. His mother encouraged all three of her children to join the school's band, in which Yoakam played drums. He also attended drama class at Northland High School, which led to him playing the role of Charlie in a production of Flowers for Algernon. Yoakam later attributed this performance as giving him more confidence performing in front of others. In his senior year of high school, Yoakam and some classmates formed a rock and roll band to compete in the school's talent show. The band became popular enough that they began performing at a number of private parties throughout Columbus as The Greaser Band. Yoakam attended Ohio State University, but quickly dropped out in order to focus on his musical career. While playing at a club in Gahanna, Ohio, Yoakam was approached by a man who promised a musical contract but later turned out to be a con artist. Despite this, Yoakam chose to move to Nashville, Tennessee, to continue pursuing a career in country music. He faced difficulty in the Nashville music scene, as his style was more indebted to honky-tonk and bluegrass music at a time when such sounds were not popular compared to country pop and Nashville sound.
Yoakam then moved to Los Angeles, California, at the encouragement of Billy Alves, a former member of the Greaser Band. While he was initially unsuccessful there as well, he met guitarist and record producer Pete Anderson at a Los Angeles bar in 1982. The two became friends when they realized they had common interest in musicians such as Merle Haggard. Anderson also observed that cowpunk and alternative country were popular in California through acts such as Joe Ely, Rank and File, and Lone Justice. By performing at clubs where these acts also performed, Yoakam was thus able to gain further exposure.
Musical career
19841986: ''Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc.''
By 1984, Yoakam had written a large number of songs. Anderson then encouraged him to record some of them on an extended play. He also served as producer and lead guitarist on the project, roles he would serve throughout most of Yoakam's career. The EP was titled Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc. and was released through the Oak Records label. It consisted of five of Yoakam's original compositions, plus a cover of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire". Songs from the extended play received airplay on independent radio stations throughout Los Angeles. Later in the year Yoakam was chosen to serve as an opening act for The Blasters. This led to him being discovered by Reprise Records executive Paige Levy, who helped Yoakam sign with the label in 1986. Reprise re-issued Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc. that year with four more tracks, thus making it his debut album. One of the added tracks was "Bury Me", a duet with Maria McKee. The first single off the album was a cover of Johnny Horton's 1956 single "Honky Tonk Man". Yoakam's rendition of the song charted at number three on Billboard Hot Country Songs in mid-1986. The song was even more successful in Canada, reaching the number one position on that nation's country music charts then published by RPM. "Honky Tonk Man" also received a music video, which in 1986 became the first by a country artist to air on MTV. The album itself reached the number one position on Billboard Top Country Albums.Two more singles followed, both of which Yoakam wrote himself. These were "Guitars, Cadillacs" and "It Won't Hurt", both of which made Hot Country Songs. Thirteen years after its release, Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc. was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, honoring shipments of two million copies in the United States. At the 29th Annual Grammy Awards in 1987, the album was nominated for Grammy Award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance and "Guitars, Cadillacs" was nominated for Best Country Song. The Country Music Association also nominated Yoakam for the Horizon Award and "Honky Tonk Man" for Music Video of the Year. Yoakam also won Top New Male Vocalist at the 1986 Academy of Country Music awards.
The album was reviewed favorably. Thom Jurek of AllMusic wrote of the album that it contained influences of Bob Dylan and Bakersfield sound. His review also noted the number of personal songs written by Yoakam himself, as well as the cover versions of "Ring of Fire" and Ray Price's "Heartaches by the Number". Ron Fell of Gavin Report compared Yoakam's musical image favorably to Buddy Holly and Bruce Springsteen while also stating that Yoakam had "an authenticity to his persona". Writing for the Rapid City Journal, Leonard Running noted the use of fiddle, steel guitar, and Dobro in the production.
19871989: ''Hillbilly Deluxe'', ''Buenas Noches from a Lonely Room'', and ''Just Lookin' for a Hit''
Yoakam's second Reprise album Hillbilly Deluxe was released in 1987. The album was also led off by a cover song; specifically, Elvis Presley's "Little Sister". After this were Yoakam's original compositions "Little Ways" and "Please, Please Baby", followed by a cover of Lefty Frizzell's "Always Late with Your Kisses". All four of these cuts made top ten on the country music charts between 1987 and early 1988. "Little Ways" was a number one single on the Canadian RPM country charts. Also covered on the album was Stonewall Jackson's "Smoke Along the Track". One of the other tracks on the album was "Readin', Rightin', Rt. 23", an autobiographical song which Yoakam wrote about the towns along U.S. Route 23 in Kentucky near his grandparents' houses. Hillbilly Deluxe was certified platinum for shipments of one million copies, and earned Yoakam another Grammy Award nomination in the category Best Male Country Vocal Performance. It also reached number one on Top Country Albums. Jurek praised the cover songs in his review for AllMusic, where he compared Yoakam's vocal phrasing favorably to Merle Haggard. He also noted the use of lap steel guitar and fiddle in Anderson's production, as well as Yoakam's lyrics on "Readin', Rightin', Rt. 23". An uncredited review in Music & Media magazine stated, "The album features sophisticated, yet fresh country music with rollicking C&W guitar lines, supplemented with Yoakam's straight, yearning vocals."File:Buck Owens.jpg|200px|thumb|left|Yoakam had a number one single in 1988 with "Streets of Bakersfield", a duet with Buck Owens.|alt=A black-and-white headshot of singer Buck Owens.
His third Reprise album was 1988's Buenas Noches from a Lonely Room. The album was his third and final to top the Billboard country albums chart. Its first two singles were also his only number one entries on Hot Country Songs, both peaking there in 1988. These were a cover of Buck Owens' "Streets of Bakersfield" which featured Owens on duet vocals, and "I Sang Dixie". Before "Streets of Bakersfield" was recorded for the album, Yoakam had contacted Owens and convinced him to sing the song on a television special for CBS. The commercial success of the studio version also led to Owens ending his retirement and re-signing with Capitol Records later in the decade. The third single from Buenas Noches from a Lonely Room was "I Got You"; while this song reached number five on the country charts, the album's title track failed to enter top 40. This album once again featured Maria McKee on backing vocals, along with accompaniment by Tejano accordionist Flaco Jiménez. Also covered on the album were Hank Locklin's "Send Me the Pillow You Dream On" and Johnny Cash's "Home of the Blues". Jurek thought that the album "shows the first signs of beginning to stretch out and be comfortable with his unique approach to hard honky tonk music, Bakersfield-style". Buenas Noches from a Lonely Room and "Streets of Bakersfield" were respectively nominated for Best Male Country Vocal Performance and Best Country Collaboration with Vocals at the 31st Annual Grammy Awards. The latter also received a CMA nomination for Vocal Event of the Year.
Yoakam ended the 1980s with his first greatest hits album, Just Lookin' for a Hit. The album consisted of eight previously released singles and two newly recorded cover songs. These were of The Blasters' "Long White Cadillac" and The Flying Burrito Brothers' "Sin City", the latter of which Yoakam recorded as a duet with k.d. lang. "Long White Cadillac" was issued as a single, reaching number 35 on the country music charts. The "Sin City" cover received a Grammy nomination for Best Country Vocal Collaboration.