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BCB Band of Oklahoma City sings "Pocket Of A Clown" by Dwight Yoakam.
When Yoakam began his career, Nashville was oriented toward pop "Urban Cowboy" music, and Yoakam's brand of Bakersfield Honky Tonk music was not considered marketable.
Not making much headway in Nashville, Yoakam moved to Los Angeles. Yoakam's vision of bringing traditional, Honky Tonk or "Hillbilly" music (as he himself called it) forward into the 1980s wasn't fully realized until he teamed up with lead guitarist and Producer Pete Anderson. While Yoakam wrote most of his songs himself, Anderson had a hand in arranging the songs and shaping their direction, as well as determining their ultimate sound as producer. Pete grew up in Detroit, Michigan, where his family had moved North to find work in the Michigan auto factories, a similar move to Yoakam's family's migration North from Kentucky. In Detroit, Pete picked up Blues guitar, being influenced by local Blues guitarists like John Lee Hooker. You can hear Pete playing some Hooker-inspired licks on Yoakam's cover of "Honky Tonk Man", on his debut album. When Pete moved to Los Angeles, he had to pick up other styles of guitar playing in order to work, and he forged his Country style playing in local Country bands. Some of these bands lacked a Steel guitarist, and so he worked out one of his most distinctive techniques: imitating a Pedal Steel guitar on standard electric guitar. Pete has tremendous skill and technique, but rarely over-plays, and has added quite a bit to the unique, hard-hitting Country/Honky-Tonk sound Yoakam featured on most of his albums. Pete has always produced records for other artists, and recently left Yoakam's band to focus full-time on producing.
Continuing, as he was forced to, outside the mainstream Country music channels, Yoakam did many shows in Rock and Punk clubs around Los Angeles, playing with Roots/Punk/Rock & Roll acts like The Blasters, Los Lobos, and X. This helped him diversify his audience well beyond the typical Country music fans; at many of his shows you would see mohawked and leather-clad Punks alongside Rock & Rollers, as well as the typical cowboy-shirt wearing Country crowd.
Yoakam's recording debut was on the independent album A Town South of Bakersfield, which was a collection of "New Country" artists who were based in Los Angeles, California, and was planned and produced by Pete Anderson in 1984. He released an E.P. on independent label Oak Records; this was later re-released, with several additional tracks, as his major-label debut LP, 1986's Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc.. It instantly launched his career. "Honky Tonk Man," a remake of the Johnny Horton song, and "Guitars, Cadillacs" were hit singles. The follow-up LP, Hillbilly Deluxe, was just as successful. His third LP, Buenas Noches From a Lonely Room, included his first #1, a duet with his musical idol, Buck Owens, on "Streets of Bakersfield". 1990's If There Was a Way was another best-seller.
Yoakam has also taken some acting roles, most notably as the abusive alcoholic Doyle in Sling Blade, (1996) and as a sociopathic killer in 2002's Panic Room. He has also appeared in Southern California live theater, combining his acting talents with the talents of director Peter Fonda. More recently, he appeared in a cameo role as the doctor for Chev Chelios in Crank. |
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