Dwight Yoakam and Wynn Williams

Dwight Yoakam was born 23 October 1956 in Pikeville, Kentucky, US, but shortly after moved to Columbus, Ohio. Yoakam attended Northland High School in the 70s and expressed an interest in both music and theatre. He regularly secured the lead role in school productions and outside the classroom he sang in various garage bands. After high school he enrolled at Ohio State University, but eventually left to pursue a music career in Nashville.

The Nashville music circuit was dominated by a saccharine brand of country that filed the roughness of its predecessors. Yoakam’s direct yet hip take on honky tonk wasn’t cutting it on a commercial level and with hope of finding a following elsewhere he packed up and left for Los Angeles.

Elvis Presley, Merle Haggard, and Johnny Horton acted as guiding lights of inspiration in Yoakam’s compositional process and by the start of the 80s he was showcasing his raw roots-driven blend of country in venues, which were frequented more by punk groups than country.

Yoakam was one of the first country musicians of his time to break the barrier separating rock fans from country fans and toured alongside a diverse range of musicians such as West Coast indie punkers X and post-hardcore pioneers Hüsker Dü.

Yoakam released his debut EP “Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc.,Etc.” through independent label Oak Records and financed the whole project himself. In 1986 he added a couple extra tracks to the EP and re-released it under Reprise Records as his debut feature length. The album was a smash and a landmark release in the country genre. His singles “Guitars, Cadillacs” and “Honk Tonk Man” scored big on the charts and his video promoting the latter song was the first release in Country music to appear on MTV.

Yoakam’s follow up “Hillbily Deluxe” spawned twice as many hits including “Little Sister”, “Little Ways”, “Please, Please Baby”, and “Always Late With Your Kisses”. His next album “Buenos Noches from Lonely Room” contained the two No.1 hits “I Sang Dixie” and the Buck Owens cover “Streets to Bakersfield”, which also featured Owens as a guest musician. Yoakam wrapped up the decade with his 1989 compilation album “Just Lookin’ for a Hit”. Like his previous releases the album sold incredibly well eventually reaching Gold status.

In 1990 Yoakam released his 4th studio album “If There Was a Way” and while it had 6 singles none of them managed to match or exceed the position of his previous cuts. However the album as a whole was critically appraised as one of his best works and went on to reach Platinum status. Also this year Yoakam was up for a Grammy nomination for his duet with K.D. Lang “Sin City”. His 5th studio LP “This Time” came out in 1993 and became one of his most commercially successful album, being the only album to go platinum since the release of his studio debut.

Yoakam’s commercial streak started to tapper off with his 1995 release “Gone”; however, his music remained as revered as ever. His next album “A Long Way Home” did not come out until 3 years later. Between releases Yoakam seemed to focus the majority of his attention on acting. He appeared in a total of 6 movies during this period including Billy Bob Thorton’s directorial debut “Sling Blade” and Richard Linklater’s historic crime drama “The Newton Boys”. Yoakam started off the turn of the millennium by issuing two studio albums “dwightyokamacoustic.net” and “Tomorrow’s Sounds Today”. The latter of the albums featured another collaboration with Buck Owens and a cover of Cheap Trick’s I Want You to Want Me”.

Yoakam wrote, directed and composed the score for the Western film “ South of Heaven, West of Hell”, which saw release in 2001. That same year he co-stared alongside Jared Leto and Jodie Foster in David Fincher’s thriller “Panic Room”.

Yoakam put out two more albums 2003’s “Population Me” and 2005’s “Blame the Vain” before going on a seven year break from releasing studio full lengths. His long awaited 13th album came out on 18 September 2014 to great critical acclaim and peaked at No. 18 on the Billboard 200.