Dwight Yoakam

Biography

Dwight David Yoakam (born October 23, 1956) is an American 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, Sugar Hill Records, and Thirty Tigers.

His first three albums—Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc., Hillbilly Deluxe, and Buenas Noches from a Lonely Room—all reached number one on the Top Country Albums chart published by Billboard. Yoakam also has two number-one singles on that publication's Hot Country Songs charts 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 and unconventional image. Although he has a large number of songs written by himself, he has also recorded cover songs by a wide range of artists including Johnny Horton, Elvis Presley, Cheap Trick, the Blasters, Lefty Frizzell, and Queen. Artists with whom he has collaborated include Beck, John Mellencamp, k.d. lang, Ralph Stanley, and members of Alison Krauss & Union Station. His albums featured production and lead guitar work by Pete Anderson until the beginning of the 21st century.

As an actor, Yoakam has appeared in the movies Red Rock West, Sling Blade, Panic Room, 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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