Dwight Yoakam

This week celebrates five years since Dwight Yoakam's latest release, Blame The Vain. To help commemorate this part of Dwight Yoakam's music history, we would like to share an article that was featured on Blame The Vain back in 2005 during the initial release.

The Boston Globe - June 25, 2005
By: Stuart Munro

More than ever before, this album is all Dwight Yoakam. He is solely responsible for its production and all of its material.

Most significantly, he made it without Pete Anderson, with whom he has worked since he was scraping for gigs and looking for his first break 30-plus years ago. Longtime backing unit the Babylonian Cowboys is also gone. Instead, Yoakam is drawing on the talents of a resurgent LA country-rock scene reminiscent of the one he was a part of in the mid-'80s along with the Blasters, X, and Los Lobos. He relies particularly on guitar slinger Keith Gattis and uses his stripped-down band to produce a sound that hearkens back to the electric hillbilly of his early records. There are splashes of pedal steel, and keyboard player Skip Edwards makes his presence know in the Elvis-in-Memphis vibe on "When I First Came Here." But at its root, "Blame the Vain" is vintage, guitar-based hillbilly rock and California honky tonk. Yoakam sounds positively rejuvenated.