Dwight Yoakam

American Musician
Dwight Yoakam is an American country singer-songwriter, actor, and filmmaker who rose to mainstream success in the mid-1980s. He has had a prolific career, releasing numerous hit albums and singles, and has also acted in various films and TV shows. Yoakam is known for his distinctive musical style and vocal delivery, blending elements of country, rock, and Bakersfield sound.

About Dwight Yoakam

Dwight David Yoakam (born October 23, 1956) is an American country singer-songwriter, actor, and filmmaker. He first achieved mainstream attention in 1986 with the release of his debut album Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc.. Yoakam had considerable success throughout the late 1980s onward, with a total of ten studio albums for Reprise Records. Later projects have been released on Audium (now MNRK Music Group), New West, Warner, and Sugar Hill Records.

His first three albums–Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc., Hillbilly Deluxe, and Buenas Noches from a Lonely Room–all reached number one on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. Yoakam also has two number-one singles on Hot Country Songs with “Streets of Bakersfield” (a duet with Buck Owens) and “I Sang Dixie”, and twelve additional top-ten hits. He has won two Grammy Awards and one Academy of Country Music award. 1993’s This Time is his most commercially successful album, having been certified triple-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

Yoakam’s musical style draws from a wide variety of influences including alternative country, neotraditional country, honky-tonk, rock and the Bakersfield sound. He is known for his distinctive tenor singing voice, unconventional musical image, and the lead guitar work of his longtime producer and bandleader Pete Anderson. Yoakam writes most of his own songs but has recorded many successful cover songs by a wide range of artists including Johnny Horton, Elvis Presley, Cheap Trick, The Blasters, Lefty Frizzell, and Queen. He has collaborated with Beck, John Mellencamp, k.d. lang, Ralph Stanley, and members of Alison Krauss & Union Station.

As an actor, Yoakam has appeared in the movies Red Rock West, Sling Blade, Panic Room, The Minus Man, and Wedding Crashers, as well as South of Heaven, West of Hell, which he wrote and directed. He also appeared in the TV series P.S. I Luv U and Under the Dome, as well as the Amazon Prime Video original series Goliath.

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Frequently asked questions about Dwight Yoakam

Dwight Yoakam was born on October 23, 1956.

Dwight Yoakam’s debut album was ,Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc.,, which was released in 1986.

Dwight Yoakam has had two number-one singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart: ,Streets of Bakersfield, (a duet with Buck Owens) and ,I Sang Dixie,.

Dwight Yoakam’s most commercially successful album is 1993’s ,This Time,, which was certified triple-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

Dwight Yoakam’s musical style is a blend of alternative country, neotraditional country, honky-tonk, rock, and the Bakersfield sound, with his distinctive tenor singing voice and the lead guitar work of his longtime producer and bandleader Pete Anderson.

Dwight Yoakam has appeared in various movies, including ,Red Rock West,, ,Sling Blade,, ,Panic Room,, and ,Wedding Crashers,. He has also had roles in TV series such as ,P.S. I Luv U, and ,Under the Dome,.

Yes, Dwight Yoakam has collaborated with several artists, including Beck, John Mellencamp, k.d. lang, Ralph Stanley, and members of Alison Krauss & Union Station.

Quotes by Dwight Yoakam

A voice expressing emotion in a musical way moves on. It’s like the finale of the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) – the world turns in on itself, as a universe unto itself, in the shape of one human being.

Dwight Yoakam

At the end of the film Val suggests there may be a way to rejoin the living, when he says, ‘Let’s see if we’re able to live among the living, walk among the living.’

Dwight Yoakam

But that is a valid, continuing service that that music – which is, in some cases, 80 or 90 years old – is rendering. And proving its own timelessness.

Dwight Yoakam

Control success before it controls you.

Dwight Yoakam

Fortunately any of the songs we’ve recorded can be extremely fulfilling to perform depending on the variety of circumstances that surround any given show.

Dwight Yoakam

I think actors are at the mercy of the opportunities presented to them. So you kind of have to wait for them to choose you. My music is insular – I can choose that.

Dwight Yoakam

I tried to pay some small tribute to A Man and a Woman (1966) with the recurring musical theme.

Dwight Yoakam

I was very fortunate in having David Fincher, the director come to me. Now I’ve seen the finished product, I feel that every bit of the nine months we spent on the film was worth it.

Dwight Yoakam

In addition, I’m finishing a track for the movie ‘Waking Up In Reno’, but there are numerous other singers I look forward to recording with in the near future.

Dwight Yoakam

In the past 3-4 years I’ve developed a habit of keeping numerous small cassette recorders in my house and in a bag with me so that I’m able to commit to tape memory song ideas on a constant basis.

Dwight Yoakam

It became a metaphor for the lives of the people in this film and for the Old West, for the abandonment that occurred in the early part of the 20th century.

Dwight Yoakam

It varies from song to song, although Buck Owens and I recently collaborated on writing a duet together and am looking forward with a great deal of anticipation to recording that track for the new studio album.

Dwight Yoakam

It’s meant to reaffirm the validity of that music – clean, minimalist, honest, classic music.

Dwight Yoakam

‘m really proud of it. To me, it’s a movie about character behavior and the pecking order of the pack, as well as the central character’s massive survival guilt.

Dwight Yoakam

Only beginning to present itself over the horizon.

Dwight Yoakam

Quality is timeless: It will clearly define itself. And so I make reference to and acknowledge things that I feel have been dismissed, trying to restate those musical and cultural elements clearly and vehemently.

Dwight Yoakam

We started shooting, and then Jodie found out she was pregnant. Forest broke it to me – he’d gone to work and heard it on the radio! It seemed like the movie was doomed. But, like these characters, there was a disregard for all the signs along the way.

Dwight Yoakam