Has Dwight Yoakam
always rocked this hard?
Does country have
some redeeming qualities?
Has my whole life
been a lie?
These are the
types of surprising questions you ask yourself when you come across something
or someone great in a genre that you'd previously written off.
One of the best
things about taking an eclectic approach to music (or any art medium, really)
is that you can never really turn your back on any genre – definitions in music
tend to be fluid things, and there's no telling when someone will came along
and completely change the game. Sometimes these figures change it for everyone
(your Miles Davis, your Bob Dylans, your Kanye Wests), but there are also
artists who change things for you as a listener – artists who make you
appreciate sounds or nuances to a genre you never did before.
For me and
country music, Dwight Yoakam may just be that game changer.
A little
background: country music has never really been my thing. As a kid in the 90s
I'm fairly certain I listened to Garth Brooks (because, judging by the amount
of people I saw wildin' about his return to touring, everybody my age did),
though I couldn't tell you any of his songs now. For the longest time the only
country I liked were the classics – Patsy Cline (still my favorite country
singer, full stop), Johnny Cash and Hank Williams – and some of the early 2000s
outlaw country – Hank III and Shooter Jennings. In recent years I've found a
lot to like in the "newer" generation – Eric Church, Sturgill
Simpson, Kacey Musgraves, Jamey Johnson and Miranda Lambert – but tended to
skip everything between Cash and Lambert's Four
the Record.
My one outlier
was Yoakam's 2012 album 3 Pears,
which hooked me hard on first, second and twenty-fifth listens. For my money,
it's an underrated country gem that nowhere near enough young people pay
attention to. Not knowing much about Yoakam at the time (he was just a name I'd
heard country fans mention), I thought perhaps it was one of those rare great
albums in the second half of an artist's career.
Now I'm forced to
grapple with the first question I posed above, and after listening to Yoakam's
fifteenth (!!!) studio album, Second Hand
Heart, I think I have an answer – fuck yes.
Yoakam's second
album is called Hillbilly Deluxe, a
name that could just as fittingly apply to Second
Hand Heart, which continues to embody what a producer told him when working
on his first album in the 1980's – a sound "so hillbilly, they're going to
call it rock 'n' roll."*
The rock vibe is
there from the word go on the album, with "In Another World's"
furious acoustic guitar riff and Tom Petty-esque electric guitar lines. In the
middle of the song Yoakam breaks out harmony work that wouldn't be out of place
on a Beach Boys track, and throughout the number he shows off his vocal range
by going low and then sending his voice soaring above the music. He also has
this kind of hiccup thing he does on a few words that is perhaps the most
country thing I've ever heard.
He keeps up the
strong vocal work on "She," wonderfully yelping his way through a
plea for a woman to share herself and her heart with him. The song is
hook-filled anthem that ably represents so much of what makes Second Hand Heart great – fantastic
guitar work, an infectious melody and some stellar vocals.
Yoakam has the
tears-in-your-beers front covered as well, with slower songs like "Dreams
of Clay" and "Off Your Mind" – the latter of which is a right
out of the Hank Williams stylebook and it's fantastic. History even gets a
rockabilly update in Yoakam's Chuck Berry-infused cover of "Man of
Constant Sorrow."
Guitar work is
front and center on the album, and Yoakam taps into the style of some of his
peers – specifically Tom Petty and John Mellencamp – who came up in the late
70s and early 80s. I'm not sure if this kind of folk-guitar rock is the secret
carry-over from the 80s (as opposed to say, whatever the hell all that hair
metal was), but Yoakam certainly treats it as if that's the case.
Album closer
"V's of Birds" starts out like it's going to be some piano-driven
weeper, then morphs into a sound-alike of "What A Wonderful World,"
before it settles into what it actually is – the prettiest damn song here. It
has the most diverse instrumentation – not only incorporating the piano, but
also an organ and mandolin – and Yoakam gives the lyrics the perfect lift and
melancholy.
Yoakam was
touring with Eric Church earlier this year as the opener, and I think that's a
great match – Church is one of the most interesting artists modern country has
to offer, and hopefully many of the young people who go to the shows (and
Church himself) paid attention when he hit the stage. Yoakam shows all the
signs of being in a legendary album run, and we're all lucky to be around for
it.
Second Hand Heart is
out on Warner Brothers.
*(The quote came
from a lovely piece by NPR's Ann Powers that you can read here.)
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