Dwight Yoakam is an exceptional artist — a unique combination of Buck Owens’ authentic love of country music, Chris Isaak’s handsome onstage charm and Rhett Miller’s roguish personality. He’s quite the showman, with a confident swagger, Southern drawl and iconic, oversized hat.
Yoakam’s intelligent approach to alt-country is appreciated so widely that he was the only performer asked to play both the indie-rock-dominated Coachella Festival and the country-centered Stagecoach Festival on back-to-back weekends in California’s Palm Desert a few months ago.
Yoakam is a solid songwriter, one who has never made secret his greatest muse, Buck Owens, but he wins fans over with the authenticity of his character and the sincerity of his music. Perhaps that’s why he talks with such reverence of his latest album, last year’s “Dwight Sings Buck,” a tribute to his late hero.
While talking in advance of his concert in Snowmass tonight as a part of the Jazz Aspen Snowmass festival, he disputed a question that implied he hadn’t released a full studio record since 2005’s “Blame the Vain.”
“The Buck album is something that we consider a studio effort, actually,” Yoakam said. “Even though it was material that I didn’t write and all of it had been recorded before, it took us several months to complete the process. And I approached it with the same emotional commitment that I approach any another album with.”
His dedication to the project, which received heaps of critical acclaim and drooling fan-boy write-ups on music blogs and fan pages, was (and is) obvious. It’s one of the most lived-in, comfortable tribute recordings in recent memory. And why shouldn’t it be? Yoakam knew Owens, his great inspiration, for nearly 20 years.
The Post caught up with Yoakam last week to talk about the ins and outs of covering his idol, and his impression of the catalog he’s left after a couple of decades of writing and performing songs.
Q:It seems like there was a lot of love that went into “Dwight Sings Buck.”
A: It was born of a love of someone I had a friendship with for almost 20 years. But it wasn’t something that had crossed my mind before he passed. His absence and my performing those songs as a personal tribute to him on a tour right after his death inspired me to move on it. I wanted to share that with my audience and hopefully some of his fans.
Q:So how did that go? You were on tour, and you heard about Buck’s passing, and then you started playing some of his music — like it was therapeutic, almost?
A: I didn’t anticipate I would start singing his songs, but I kept doing that the entire tour. It didn’t feel right to leave Buck at home, and so he began touring with me, in a way.
Q:And so the record was born?
A: Toward the end of the tour, it came up that the label was interested in us doing something like a tribute. We’d discussed doing a tribute of some sort, something that involved a lot of other artists, but the band and I had been playing a medley of his material on the road, and that’s what led to us going into the studio in late ’06.
Q:Had you covered Buck much before his death?
A: I guess we always shared “Streets of Bakersfield,” but before his passing I felt like I would have been usurping his right of ownership to those songs, and so I never performed any of his songs onstage — unless he invited me on the stage with him.
Q:Having read what I have about Buck Owens, he would have been pleased to see you covering his songs.
A: He would have. Buck would have been happy to have me play them and record them. But still, it just didn’t feel right.
Q:Do you remember the songs that made up the medley you started playing out after his passing?
A: Sure, it was “Act Naturally,” “Together Again,” “Cryin’ Time” and “Streets of Bakersfield.” We didn’t do “Under Your Spell” until we cut the album.
Q:Was there a song of his you intentionally avoided?A: I didn’t record “Tiger By the Tail” because it was something that, for me, with regard to me performing Buck’s material, I didn’t want to in any way lay claim to it. That’s the song that I thought was the quintessential Buck Owens sound and, stylistically, the song that is his zenith and the microcosm of all the elements that he had created: the modern Bakersfield Sound and, specifically, the Buck Owens sound in country music.
In ’87, prior to meeting Buck, I had done my own homage to Buck and, specifically, “Tiger By the Tail,” with the song “Little Ways” off “Hillbilly Deluxe.” And I dedicated that song to the inspiration that his music was to not only myself but several generations of aspiring country performers. If you listen to how I sing the phrases in there, you’ll hear that I’m doing an exaggerated drawing out of everything. That was all Buck.
Q: “Dwight Sings Buck” is an exploration of Buck’s legacy. Has all this looking back, rearranging and thinking gotten you thinking at all about your own legacy?A:I’m fortunate to have had a career that was successful enough to last this long, and I’m lucky to have the breadth and width of material that I have so I can look back and explore and revisit things I haven’t done in 15 years — or 20 on some nights.
Q:You’ve been performing and writing for so long, I’m curious if you ever hear something you did 20 years ago and get a little embarrassed.
A: I’m not embarrassed about anything I’ve ever written, knock wood. Nothing was ever done with malice or ill intent, and nothing was ever done with any kind of misgiving. I’ve been fortunate in that regard, that I don’t have regrets about the music I’ve made. I’m proud about everything I’ve been able to do.
Ricardo Baca: 303-954-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com
