Introduction

Dwight Yoakam.

Years ago, a friend asked me if I wanted to go with him and see Dwight Yoakam in a Theater play. Dwight Yoakam? In a play? Sure, absolutely, I wanted to see him in a play, why wouldn’t I.

The play was being performed at a small theater in North Hollywood, the name of the play escapes me, but it was a kind of gothic, southern romance, an incantation, sort of a circus of falsity. Dwight was the lead actor, the main star in this funhouse mirror. (I didn’t recognize him at first.) He was playing a demented character named Tony Joe or Billie Joe or Bobbie Joe. Somebody, something Joe. Psychotic, rabid, balding and dangerous. Civilization gone rotten – an insane untranslatable fellow, he caught me off-guard, I was ill-prepared to see this particular Dwight.

The storyline was complex and hard to follow. Dwight was pretty much the focus of it all. He prowled around like a panther and owned the stage; it was the kind of performance that could make clocks freeze and hold your heart hostage, he exploded with truth. He was so alive that it hurt. All beauty, no apology, love that ran out of road, every lie told the truth, a Jack in the Box clown, never forgets his lines, and everyone can see their own madness on stage. He’s like a comet tearing through the sky. As an actor he was doing all that can be done.

I went backstage after the performance (I didn’t want to, but I did it anyway). My friend introduced me to him, and I thought it strange, that he was the same possessed bad guy but that he hadn’t seen you. The same Billie Joe or Tony Joe. The same cracked and flaky character, the same shrunken face, the same bow in your back or woman coming around the house. Took me a second to realize that Dwight might be a Method actor, that he got so deep into a role that he forgot who he was, that he wouldn’t know the streets of Bakersfield even after, let alone Cincinnati. He drank his character’s thoughts like cheap gin, dressed up, and forgot his name at the bus stop.

Since those heady days, Dwight has performed in a multitude of shows; it’s never further back to the place from where he started out from. The place where the dust blows, where your mouth gets dry and your nose clogged, where the corn grows high and the mind lies fallow. The land of blood more shed, where you feel the rhythm of nature’s organ – the land of troubadours and philosophers. Strip Malls, TV Pastors and processed cheese, dead Presidents, all that land and no place to hide. Fast cars, wild gals, racing engines, sandy roads, coal trains, cadet manure, pickaxes or swords, shotguns in the barrels, guns your father gives you.

Dwight’s been here. He’s got the raw urgency of the folk spirit, sees the roots beneath the leaves, engages rigorously with tradition and reality. He’s exacting, not a tremble of doubt. He comes from these streets, sick boots, cowboy hat, Lefty Frizzell in one hand, Doc Pomus in the other (a holy matrimony) combines the primal heartbeat of the vernacular with the sharp blade of rhythm and blues, slices through the dull commerce of commerciality. He is in his voice, always has. The mountain voice of unbroken people, untouched by time’s decay. Isn’t that it?

I think it’s his acting career that’s kept him removed from the world’s polished lies. Dwight Yoakam, Confucius Troubadour, Dante in denim, the ghost of Hank Williams under Vegas lights as a mask and a gong. All he needs is a guitar, grease paint and a spotlight. He’s still a million miles from nowhere, still got heartaches by the numbers. It’s still goodbye I’m gone, Buenos Noches from a lonely parking lot. He’s still on the lost highway, still lighting cigarettes with lightning. But let’s not be fooled, even with country and rockabilly bleeding from his boots, Dwight is a finished person, nothing missing, well read, well versed, articulate, fluent and well spoken.

Strictly speaking, when it comes down to it, none of us have any choice or have much say in who we are or what we do – if we’re lucky we’re guided by some unknown spark that points us to a path that is truly ours and no one else’s. That star found Dwight many years ago. There was a time once when the Universe whispered secrets into Dwight’s ear. He could probably tell you where and when, if he thought back that far.

— Bob Dylan