|
DWIGHT YOAKAM "DwightYoakamAcoustic.net" BIOGRAPHY |
The latest release from Grammy-winning, California-based country singer, songwriter and guitarist Dwight Yoakam is a project as unorthodox and spontaneous as the man himself. While the multi-million-selling DWIGHT has been working overtime--recording a new studio album for release in the fall; launching his dwightyoakam.net website; and scripting, directing and acting in his forthcoming motion picture "South of Heaven, West of Hell"--he remains, above all else, a musician, one who must respond to the urgings of his own inner muse, even when in the midst of several other demanding creative endeavors. The result--a CD that re-examines some of the best material from DWIGHT's remarkable career via a bare-bones, just-me-and-my-guitar solo presentation--is an impressive addition to his already renowned body of work. Titled dwightyoakamacoustic.net and produced by longtime collaborator Pete Anderson at The Dog Bone Studio in Los Angeles, this is a concept that almost created itself. "The idea for this album came as a result of the audience's gracious and enthusiastic response to the acoustic performances I did on our 1999 'Last Chance' tour," DWIGHT said. "The 25 songs on the album span the fifteen years that I have been fortunate enough to spend recording as a singer and songwriter." From city to city, DWIGHT's show-closing solo-acoustic mini-sets evoked numerous raves. The Los Angeles Times' Randy Lewis opined that "the most engrossing segment was the encore portion, in which the Kentucky native returned with just an acoustic guitar and reeled off a string of songs that tapped his bluegrass and folk roots and brimmed with spontaneity," while the Hollywood Reporter declared "the night's most affecting moments came with the scaled down acoustic numbers...an intimate set of songs from Yoakam solo on acoustic guitar." For a performer whose stage shows are acclaimed for their rip-roaring, electrified hard country impact, such a minimalist approach comes as somewhat of a surprise. Yet despite being reduced to the barest essentials, DWIGHT's tales of honky tonk agony seem to reach a higher artistic plateau, sounding as if he innately feels not only the lyric but, in this setting, a necessity to fuel the very language with greater psychological depth, conjuring a sense of deepened emotional involvement that casts an entirely new light on the songs. Culled from his earliest Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc. Etc. days right on through to 1998's A Long Way Home, the songs seem, through the very process of re-examination itself, to take on new shadings and impact. Entwining the simplicity of country music's earliest historic forebears, the itinerant minstrel, with his own distinctive 21st century realism, creates a potent mix, unique weaving of traditional and modern sensibilities. DWIGHT's guitar digs into gutsy rhythms, chugging and sighing, seeming to conjure patterns of remorse and elation, while his vocal phrasing also seems to sweep through previously unexplored territories. The disc's opener "Bury Me" assumes wrenching emotional impact. "1,000 Miles" becomes an entirely new trip, while the Doc Pomus/Mort Shuman-penned Elvis Presley classic "Little Sister" smolders with primitive rockabilly intensity (and features the only non-Dwight element--a volcanic Pete Anderson guitar solo). On "Throughout All Time" and "Little Ways," DWIGHT's voice clearly takes on a life of its own, one with an undeniable bite and authenticity that peaks with the manicured agony of closer "It Only Hurts When I Cry." Elsewhere, the CD finds DWIGHT pushing ever further into this new realm of acoustic re-definition, and from the first notes of "Buenas Noches From A Lonely Room," DWIGHT's classic 1988 murder ballad, to the stunning finale, a plaintive a cappella reading of "Guitars Cadillacs Etc. Etc.," each number is delivered with haunting skill and a natural craftsmanship that's rarely found in contemporary country music. His version of "Fast As You" is a dazzling example of DWIGHT's oft-overlooked talent as a guitarist--an arresting, almost pyrotechnic blend of rhythm and texture that draws the listener in with its distinct, almost hypnotic groove, and lends the segue into the desolation of "Home For Sale" a profound resonance. Taken as whole, the CD presents a fascinating new perspective on the broad range of DWIGHT's songwriting. As he described it in the preface of his first book, 1999's "A Long Way Home: 12 Years of Words," songwriting itself is akin to "...a process of chasing wisps of smoke around a room, and, obviously for me, not an easily or clearly definable one." That mysterious, incorporeal quality which DWIGHT the songwriter pursues seems also to provide DWIGHT the singer with a margin wide enough to treat each song with a subtle change in attitude, new shades of coloration, focus and atmosphere. Themes of loss and despair glide kaleidoscopically between moments reflective and joyous--moments that, when strung together in this form, reveal not only entirely new depths in his lyrics but also allow the listener to gain an insight to the artist himself. And here, with DWIGHT representing his past while demonstrating an almost limitless gift of interpretive skill, it's quite clear that looking to that past provides him with greater perspective on the journey ahead. Writing in the August 1999 issue of Playboy magazine about DWIGHT's impact, critic Vic Garbarini noted: "...it was...Dwight Yoakam who most successfully updated country's sound over the past decade while remaining true to its populist ideals. A disciple of the Bakersfield school of Buck Owens and Merle Haggard, Yoakam was one of the few original voices to achieve mainstream success without compromising his individuality. Last Chance For A Thousand Years: Dwight Yoakam's Greatest Hits From The Nineties reveals an artist who balances tradition with innovation. |
|
|