Things We Said TodayDwight Yoakam

Dwight Yoakam

Dwight Yoakam (23 October 1956 -) was born in Pikeville, Kentucky and is a country music singer-songwriter who has released some 20 studio albums, charted more than 30 singles, and sold more than 25 million records. He has five Billboard #1 albums, twelve gold albums, and nine platinum albums.

Yoakam learned to play guitar at age six and grew up listening to his mother’s collection of Hank Williams and Johnny Cash records. As he became a teen, he says he was influenced by The Stanley Brothers and the Bakersfield sound of Buck Owens and Merle Haggard. After high school, Yoakam attended Ohio State University, but he dropped out and moved to Nashville in the late ‘70s with the intent of becoming a recording artist. When he arrived in Nashville, it was in its pop-oriented Urban Cowboy phase, and no one had any interest in his updated honky tonk sound. He moved to Los Angeles, where he found a welcoming audience. In L.A., Yoakam played the same clubs that punk and post-punk rock bands like the Dead Kennedys and Los Lobos. What Yoakam had in common with those rock bands was a similar musical influence; they all drew from a blend of 50s rock & roll and country. Compared to the music coming from Nashville, Yoakam’s stripped-down rockabilly revivalism seemed pretty radical.

Yoakam’s breakout album was Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc. Etc., released in 1986. It earned airplay on country and college radio across America. Since then he’s delivered a consistent honky tonk sound and imaginative lyrics to the point where now he’s considered the rightful successor to Merle Haggard. Yoakam’s most recent album is Swimmin' Pools, Movie Stars …, a collection of mostly original Yoakam songs, but done with bluegrass instruments.