Dwight Yoakam: The Fruits Of His Labor

He continues, “As I look back retrospectively, I didn’t understand that the real business here (in Nashville) was songwriting. Music Row was not about live performance. It was about recording and those companies that supply the material for those artists to record. I didn’t know that you got a job songwriting in one of those houses and start making your way. And so when I knocked on enough doors and didn’t get any response to who I was as a performer, I went west.”

Yoakam found fertile ground in the clubs of L.A. and the San Fernando Valley, cultivating a blend of blazing honky-tonk, Appalachian storytelling and rock and roll swagger. In 1981 he tracked free demos at United Western Recorders in Los Angeles – between  paying customers, thanks to an engineer who could hear his potential. Nashville, however, was slower to catch on.

“I came back to Nashville a couple more times to try and pitch things without much response. Then the cowpunk scene blew up on the West Coast,” he says. “It allowed us to access a young rock audience that wanted to hear what I was doing and my form of traditional country music.”

Yoakam released Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc., on Warner Bros. in 1986. Its lead single was a super-twangy cover song – “Honky Tonk Man.” Johnny Horton, who co-wrote the song, had charted a Top 10 country hit with it in 1956. Yoakam climbed to No. 3 with his take.

Was there concern that Yoakam was entering the national scene singing somebody else’s tune?

“No, no no no. I wasn’t worried. Whatever opened the door,” he admits.

There was no need to worry, either. Yoakam went on to write many of his biggest singles alone: “Guitars, Cadillacs,” “Little Ways,” “Please, Please Baby,” “I Sang Dixie,” “I Got You,” “You’re The One,” “A Thousand Miles From Nowhere” and “Fast As You” all reached the Top 10 between 1986 and 1994. Critics and fans alike embraced Yoakam’s unique style – and so did one country legend in particular.

“Of all the people in country music, yes indeed, there was one that was monumental in stature and that was Johnny Cash,” Yoakam says. “I knew him through Carlene Carter [June Carter Cash’s daughter]. We had become friends the previous year and she had sent word that he was a fan of the EP. Then when I performed on Hee Haw the first time – the first and only time – it was Johnny and June introducing me. He said, ‘June, do you like hard country?’ And she said, ‘Yes, John, I do.’ And he said, ‘This next fellow is hard country.’”

It’s worth noting that Yoakam has recorded Cash’s “Ring Of Fire” on two studio albums – first, on Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc., and again as a bonus track on a deluxe edition of 3 Pears.

In other little ways, 3 Pears calls to mind Yoakam’s auspicious early catalog, including a knack for finding a perfect cover song. In the late 1980s, he scored Top 10 hits with Elvis Presley’s “Little Sister” and Lefty Frizzell’s “Always Late With Your Kisses.” A feisty and memorable duet version of Buck Owens’ “Streets Of Bakersfield” with the legendary singer himself became Yoakam’s first No. 1 hit – and Owens’ first No. 1 in 16 years.

This time, Yoakam digs up another rip-roaring country chestnut, “Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (And Loud, Loud Music).” Famed guitarist Joe Maphis, a pioneer of the Bakersfield Sound, co-wrote it with his wife Rose Lee Maphis and Max M. Fidler. The couple found success with their rendition in 1953. Gram Parsons later recorded a laidback version with the Flying Burrito Brothers. Vern Gosdin landed a Top 20 hit with it in 1985. The screeching hot rod in Yoakam’s rowdy version indicates that this wild gal likes fast cars as much as anything.

Yoakam has been largely self-produced since parting ways with Pete Anderson about a decade ago, yet he teamed with alternative rock star Beck on two of 3 Pears’ tracks – “Heart Like Mine” and “Missing Heart.”

Asked where his and Beck’s musical interests overlap, Yoakam says, “His love of music is independent of boundary and categorization. We share that. He responds in a very physical, visceral way to music. He literally listens and responds with his physical self. He kind of jerks in response. I think that informs what he and I did together. I think he can be viewed as a very intellectual guy, and he is, but at the end of the day what makes him a great musician is his connection to the emotional element of music.”

In addition, Yoakam co-wrote with Ashley Monroe on “It’s Never Alright,” probably the album’s most melancholy track. (The hook is “They say it gets better / Well I guess that it might / But even when it’s better / it’s never alright.”) Yoakam convinced Monroe to change her original ascending melody in the key of G to a descending melody in E minor, then to a C.

“We did that and then we were off to the races,” Yoakam recalls. “When you move to the E minor to the C, there’s something bluesy about that.” Coincidentally, the moody string arrangements come courtesy of Beck’s father, David Campbell.

Although Yoakam rarely co-writes, he does have fond memories of working with Roger Miller on “It Only Hurts When I Cry,” a Top 10 hit for Yoakam in 1991.

“He was at my house, we were hanging out and he was just a sweet guy,” Yoakam recalls. “The big thrill was being called up by Roger when it [became a] hit and him being elated! I thought, ‘My gosh, Roger Miller, of all people …’ That’s what’s right about it. He was still excited about having a hit. I mean, he had so many hit records from that run in the ’60s from “Dang Me” and the King Of The Road album. As a lyricist, he was one of the handful of geniuses ever in pop music or country. He and Chuck Berry are not given enough credit for the genius of their lyricism.”

Of course, country music has changed since the heyday of Roger Miller – not to mention the seven years since Yoakam’s previous album of original material, Blame The Vain, was released on New West Records. Rather than discussing all the changes of country music, though, Yoakam is asked how country music has remained the same since his career started.

“Well, in that it’s always there to be rediscovered. That’s how it’s remained the same,” he replies. “It’s still there to be rediscovered and reinterpreted. And that’s how it will change, in the way the next artist will reinterpret it.”