Dwight Sings Buck

Few entertainers have attained the iconic status of Dwight Yoakam. Much has been made that the Kentucky-born Yoakam was too country for Nashville when he first sought out his musical fortune in the mid-80s, but the truth is his music has always been too unique, too ruggedly individualistic to fit neatly into one box. Like the icons he so admires – Merle, Buck—Yoakam is one of a kind. The long-time Los Angeleno has sold more than 25 million albums world wide, placing him in an elite cadre of global superstars. Yet the sales have never come at the expense of his musical integrity. His debut album in 1986, Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc., had critics and fans alike taking notice, heralding a new voice that arrived fully formed with no contemporary rival. Over his next several albums, Yoakam morphed from talented newcomer into musical legend. In 2005, Dwight joined forces with New West Records and released Blame The Vain, which saw great critical success and an extensive tour by Dwight and his band. On March 25, 2006 in the midst of this 17-month world tour, when Dwight Yoakam got the awful news that his close friend Buck Owens had passed away, it was a shock. Only four days earlier, the honky-tonk compadres had spent four hours on the phone catching up. Immediately, Yoakam and his band, who’d been playing Dwight and Buck’s 1988 chart- topping duet “The Streets of Bakersfield” as an encore, added several Owens classics to the set. By the fall of ‘06, he and his label New West Records agreed that Yoakam’s next album would honor the architect of the Bakersfield Sound. The resulting album, Dwight Sings Buck reprises and re-imagines fifteen of Buck Owens’ greatest, including 11 top five hits, eight of which reached #1 on the country charts, spanning 1956 to 1967, with stunning results.