Watching Dwight Yoakam & his lively bar band do battle with terrible sound to a half full crowd of largely sober inner-city cowboys too old to even “shake and vac” let alone fingerpop on a rainy Friday night in Sydney last night it was hard to recall that he was once about as cool as one could be.
In a strange time after the punk rock upheaval, a Stray Cats inspired rockabilly revival faded away and Elvis Costello reintroduced a curious New Wave world to Gram Parsons & “real country music”. As part of his pro Nashville crusade he even split for Nashville and recorded the amazing Almost Blue covers album with legendary “Room Of Gloom” producer Billy Sherrill. “A Good year for the Roses” made the pop chart and pedal steels were so “today” for a very short minute. For a minute Newtown cool prevailed and all of Brixton had a country band called something like The Boothill Foot Tappers. We were led like thirsty horses to water towards the mysterious (and un-right-on) world of country music. Ex-gynacologist Hank Wangford became festival act de jour and hosted a TV show that overused the word “ironic” but introduced the world of the NME to Faron Young’s guitar shaped swimming pool and George Jones and Tammy Wynette singing “Golden Ring” to each other after their divorce (essential youtube viewing). And everyone wondered at records called “Drop Kick Me Jesus Over The Goal Posts Of Life” and “You’re The Reason Our Kids Are Ugly”, and bought themselves a copy of “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” with its iconic roses and hearts cover. Kitsch was king and bolero ties were the mark.
The NME even gave away a free country cassette which included the brilliant David Frizzell cut “Gonna Hire A Wino To Decorate Our Home”
Anyway, into the middle of this hipsters mindfuck burst Dwight Yoakam. Live from California, skinny hips in skintight denim, great hat, box jacket with nudie rhinestones, slick as oil. Dwight had enough of his own real style for England to fall in love, whatever the music. Dwight showed everyone exactly how to cut the bottom of your Levis so they sat Southern style over your calf skin cowboy boots. And he played a zooped up version a music from Bakersfield California called “honky tonk” that we knew nothing about. Songs about guitars, cadillacs and, well, Hillbilly Music … full of honky tonks, juke boxes, and rebel yells. And he was great. And we all drank Wild Turkey whiskey and tried to get our two London left feet round the Texas two step and loved it.
So in honour of better times here’s a little playlist of some of the original songs and characters that Dwight bought into our lives for the first time as we realised that country music was funny, but also swung like a bastard and was the right thing to drink, fuck and fight to. Watch them and marvel at the world of an America where Richard Nixon was president and (definitely) not Barack Obama.
Johnny Horton - ‘Honky Tonk Man’
Jerry Lee Lewis - 'What made Milwaukee Famous (made a loser out of me)’
Joe Maphis & Wife - 'Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (and Loud Loud Music)’
Hank Williams - 'Honky Tonkin’
Charlie Walker - 'Honky Tonk Women’
Merle Haggard - 'Swinging Doors’
George Jones - 'Brown To Blue’
Buck Owens - 'Put A Quarter in The Jukebox’
'Close Up The Honky Tonks’
Hank Thompson - 'A Six Pack To Go’
Eddie Noack - 'Psycho’
Johnny Paycheck - 'Pardon Me (I’ve Got Someone to Kill)’
Ernest Tubb - 'Thanks A Lot’
and last but not by any means last Dwight’s own classic drinking song 'It Wont Hurt’ (… when I fall down from this barstool)
- which sadly he didn’t give a spin to but which is a feeling we’ve all tried a couple of times.
You know something? The other night just for a minute if you closed your eyes to squint and imagined you were in a smokey bar, jukebox blazing, drinking beer with shots it was almost like the real Dwight was back. He still had the moves, he looked pretty slick, and he & his pretty spunky five piece played it hard and loud. It wasn’t a big step to make you know. He still had “IT”.
Dwight Yoakam, you wrote our lives. Or at least the ones we fantasised ourselves into.
[Dwight Yoakam has a new album called Three Pears out now. It’s good but the original 'Guitars, Cadillacs…’ still seems to me to be the one. Dwight made a pretty cool album 'Dwight Sings Buck’ in tribute to his hero and Bakersville sound pioneer Buck Owens that’s good if you like the sound here but there’s also a pretty good set called 'Honky Tonkin’’ of some of the best 50s stuff and it’s cheap cheap cheap.]
