From the time of his first release in 1986, "Guitars Cadillacs Etc. Etc.," Dwight Yoakam made his uniqueness known. With a slim frame, piercing blue eyes and perpetual cowboy hat, Yoakam had talent, stage presence and a musicality that transcended his own generation.
Born in Kentucky in 1956 and raised in Ohio, Yoakam began playing guitar as a child and in high school was a rock 'n' roll garage-band player. But it's thanks to his affinity for honky-tonk and a kinship with the Owens clan that this country and Western superstar will appear at the River Run Lodge for one night only at 7 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 3.
Yoakam was invited to play a benefit for the Wood River YMCA by his friend Buck Owens' son, Michael Owens, of Ketchum.
Yoakam's association with the Owens family goes back 20 years this summer. Buck Owens, the legendary country and Western musician, radio station owner and television star, was a mentor and inspiration to the young Yoakam.
Buck Owens, along with Merle Haggard, was the leader of what became known as the Bakersfield sound, a twangy, electrified, honky-tonk that emerged in the 1960s. It was this sound that attracted Yoakam. After departing a slicked-up Nashville, Yoakam settled in Los Angeles where he began making more Western-oriented honky-tonk music.
"I am drawn to a traditional foundation and pure voices in country music," Yoakam said in a phone interview.
After nearly two years on the road promoting his latest album, "Blame the Vain," Yoakam is not traveling this summer.
"I'm in L.A. at home for awhile until we come up there on the third," he said. "I never look forward to the travel. We did a lot of shows and nights on the road in '05 and '06, 325 nights. We went to Australia and Europe twice. I've been fortunate that my music travels.
"But I'm looking forward to being there for the Y and for Michael. Glad to be a small part of that and seeing the Owens boys. We feel a kinship, over the years."
Buddy Alan and Michael Owens are Buck's sons with his first wife, singer Bonnie Owens, who was later married to Merle Haggard.
"This is my only show this year, except a memorial birthday party for Buck on August 14 in Bakersfield," Yoakam said. "We met at the Kern County Fair (in 1987). He sat in with me. Then he brought me his song 'Streets of Bakersfield.' I got a call."
(In the telling of this story, Yoakam slipped perfectly into Buck Owens' singular slow drawl.)
"'Dwight," he said, "it's your old buddy Buck Owens. I've got an idea for you, Merle and myself."
"He wanted to sing it at the Country Music anniversary show. We'd represent the West Coast sound. It'd never been a single for Buck. As fate would have it, Merle couldn't do the show. But we preformed it on the CMA show. Then he called me up a couple weeks later. (Buck drawl comes through the telephone line again). 'Dwight, it's your old buddy Buck Owens. I believe if you cut that song, you'd have a hit.' I said only if you come to record it with me. So in early '88 he came down. It was a memorable moment in my life and career and I indeed had a number-one single. He was right, as usual.''
The two men toured together that summer and for the first time in years, audiences saw Buck Owens as the honky-tonk singer he once was.
"I coaxed him to come on the road with me," Yoakam said. "It reawakened his interest in doing that. Showed him how much people loved him and missed him. The musicians and fans really revered him."
Since his first album in 1986, Yoakam proved a worthy part of the Bakersfield world. His chart-topping albums include "Hillbilly Deluxe" (1987), "Buenas Noches From A Lonely Room" (1988), "Just Lookin' For A Hit" (1989), "If There Was A Way" (1990) and the triple-platinum "This Time" (1993), featuring the Grammy-winning single "Ain't That Lonely Yet." These were followed by "Dwight Live" (1995), "Gone" (1996), "Under The Covers" (1997), "Come On Christmas" (1997), "A Long Way Home" (1998), "Last Chance For A Thousand Years" (1999), "Reprise Please Baby" (2002) and "Blame the Vain" (2005). As well, Yoakam has stretched his acting chops, honed during high school, by appearing in some 15 movies including "Sling Blade," "Wedding Crashers," "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" and the 2001 "South of Heaven, West of Hell," which he wrote and directed.
"Buck was leery of it for me originally," Yoakam said. "Ironic since his song, 'Act Naturally,' is about being in the movies."
Yoakam has another sideline, besides acting. He has his own range of frozen foods based on his grandmother Earlene's rural Kentucky recipes for delicacies such as Chicken Lickins fried chicken bits, Boom Boom shrimp and Lanky Links. In collaboration with Modern Foods, the food is marketed under the name Dwight Yoakam's Bakersfield Biscuit Brand.
It seems that Yoakam, an original to his bones, is a traditionalist as well. He listens to Willie's Place on XM satellite radio, which features a lot of his old friends, including Owens and Haggard. But he tries to keep an ear out for special sounds.
"Things are cyclical. Every generation, new people reinvigorate the genre," he said. "Elizabeth Cook is a great example. She's great, really terrific. I'm a big fan."
His current project, begun after he got off the road in December 2006, is not surprisingly a tribute to his old friend Buck Owens.
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YMCA Benefit Concert
Dwight Yoakam
River Run Amphitheater
7 p.m. (gates 6 p.m.) Friday, Aug. 3.
ticketweb.com or 727-YMCA.
$55 adults, $15 kids under 12, $150 VIP.
Dwight Yoakam will play only two nights live in concert this year.
