CD Odyssey Disc 796: Dwight Yoakam

I’ve been on a bit of a run of late eighties/early nineties country music with KD Lang and now this next review.

Disc 796 is….The Essentials

Artist: Dwight Yoakam

Year of Release: 2005 but with music from 1987 to 1993

What’s up with the Cover? Dwight looks old school here, and just a little stoned. I love the jacket. When we were in Nashville last month Sheila and I went in a store that made one-of-a-kind jackets like this. I wanted to get one but while they look casual, they ain’t cheap.

How I Came To Know It: I’d heard Dwight Yoakam here and there over the years and thought I’d take a chance. I didn’t like him enough to go buy all his records, but I liked him enough to get a compilation record.

How It Stacks Up: Compilation albums don’t “stack up” since they aren’t true albums.

Ratings: Compilation albums don’t get a rating – they compete unfairly with all their hits and what-not.

Dwight Yoakam has been quietly making albums for almost thirty years, which makes me wonder why a 2005 album called “The Essentials” only has music from 1986 to 1993. ‘Essential’ apparently only applies to his first five studio albums.

While I look forward to finding out for myself what I think of Dwight’s full discography (yes, Sheila, that’s going to happen), I can’t fault the choices made; the tracks here definitely feel essential. I expect ‘best of’ albums to be higher quality but “Essentials” has really outdone itself, with one great song after another.

The first thing I noticed was how fresh Yoakam sounds – not like anything else country music had offered to that point. Yoakam apparently called it ‘hillbilly’ style, but I think a better term is ‘urban cowboy’. It sounds like a combination of Hank Williams and fifties rock and roll. There’s a nasal drawl in Yoakam’s voice that lays on the hurt just like Hank, but the guitar sound is that of an electric being dragged through country progressions a step slower than it wants. The resulting protest in each note is the perfect match to Yoakam’s vocal delivery.

A big part of this working is lead guitarist Pete Anderson, who is an absolute master of all the multiple influences Yoakam brings to these songs. I’m not sure this stuff would have even worked without Anderson’s signature twang standing side by side with Yoakam’s hillbilly vocals.

These are not songs about being home on the range, or going to the country dance. These are songs about moving to the city; feeling lonely and broke while you wear your cowboy boots out on the pavement. Through it all, Dwight makes it a pleasure to wallow alongside him. It is expressed beautifully on the slow and mournful, “I Sang Dixie”:

“He said way down yonder in the land of cotton, old times there ain't near as rotten

As they are on this damned old L.A. street

Then he drew a dying breath, and laid his head against my chest

Please Lord, take his soul back home to Dixie.”

This song even throws in some traditional southern fiddle and steel guitar, making Yoakam’s allegiance clear when it comes to what kind of artist he is, despite the absence of cows and log cabins.

A lot of Dwight’s early fame came from doing memorable covers. “The Essentials” has him doing Elvis’ “Little Sister,” Queen’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” and Johnny Horton’s “Honky Tonk Man.” He also does a fine version of “Streets of Bakersfield” as a duet with original artist Buck Owen which I remember being an early hit for him. In every case, Yoakam makes the song his own and even equal to the original. In the case of “Little Sister” I think it’s better. Since Elvis didn’t write it I’ve decided it now belongs to Dwight Yoakam.

For all that, my “best songs” entries below have none of these. The truth is that Yoakam’s original material is brilliant stuff, and if you decide to go listen to any of these songs, I’d prefer you choose those. “Guitars, Cadillacs” and “I Got You” are both so timeless I was sure they were old covers anyway, but both are Dwight Yoakam originals.

“Ain’t That Lonely Yet,” “You’re the One” and “Fast As You” are all nasty break-up songs filled with bruised hearts and nasty rejections that are all the more pathetic because they are clearly coming after the other party’s already done the damage. They are all brilliant songs, but “Fast As You” is my favourite, if only because of its promise of revenge sex that is simultaneously vitriolic and a little hollow. It is like Dwight couldn’t bring himself to do it, but really wanted to.

“Maybe I'll be as fast as you

Maybe I'll break hearts too

But I think that you'll slow down

When your turn to hurt comes around

Maybe I'll break hearts

And be as fast as you”

The whole song has a bass line that is very close to “Pretty Woman” and gives the song the same nervous energy. Even if the similarity is deliberate it just makes it better, as Yoakam imagines he’ll be the one ‘walking down the street’ this time. But all those ‘maybes’ undercut the whole threat. A broken heart can really make you wonder just what you’re going to do.

“A Thousand Miles From Nowhere” shows the influence of Gram Parsons and the Byrds, blending that easy hippy rock quality into Yoakam’s urban cowboy vision. If Gram were alive in 1993 when this came out, he would be happy to know his dream of marrying the best of rock and country was alive and well.

This may just be a ‘best of’ album, but it has definitely inspired me to delve deeper into Dwight Yoakam’s discography. It even makes me feel a little guilty I don’t own anything else. I’ll make it up to you, Dwight.

Best tracks:  Ain’t That Lonely Yet, You’re the One, Guitars Cadillacs, Fast as You, I Sang Dixie, A Thousand Miles from Nowhere, I Got You