Dwight Yoakam - From Zero to Hero?

Way back when, Dwight Yoakam found a way to sell hardcore hillbilly country music — that of the high nasal voice, gut-bucket guitar and fiddles — to an audience that country tastemakers in Nashville didn't know existed.

Today Yoakam has some new songs written but no plan yet for putting them in the possession of his listeners. Again he's looking to sell something that doesn't sound like mainstream country, but a shift in the business has him weighing his options and looking for a different way to present his work.

In between his 1980s arrival and his unmapped tomorrow Yoakam created a body of work striking for its consistent excellence, with a sense of daring tempered by a commitment to tradition.

Earlier this year, Chris Isaak told me Yoakam “is about as good a songwriter that ever put a pen to a paper. I think he is someone who years from now will still be remembered, like a Hank Williams or Buck Owens.”

Yoakam has done this with an admirable focus. He's written some of the best weepers about drunks and barflies. But as a lifelong teetotaler he's done so through observation. That high, lonesome voice hasn't been compromised by smoke or drink. He doesn't believe one needs to suffer for his art.

Like Williams (who suffered plenty), Yoakam writes simply with a relatable resonance. His schooling seems to include as much Brill Building and Doc Pomus as it does Roger Miller and Hank Williams.

And he was an album artist, refusing to stuff eight duds alongside two hits on a recording, a common country-music practice. Gone, his 1995 masterpiece (one of several), is a template for how much can be done with so little: 10 songs, 35 minutes, with horns that suggest classic Johnny Cash, a keyboard vamp that sounded like Doug Sahm, vocals that echo the Jordanaires and sweeping strings. It was a country album but one with kaleidoscopic pop color.

There's always been a lot going on under the hat.

When the hits dried up, his approach didn't change. His career has almost followed a 10-year cycle: After a decade of recording mostly original material, he made Under the Covers in 1997. That album found Yoakam doing songs by the likes of the Clash and Roy Orbison.

He returned to doing his own thing, with occasional acting gigs, until 2007, when he released Dwight Sings Buck, a collection of songs originally recorded by his friend and mentor Buck Owens.

Owens died months before recording began on the album. Yoakam says he and his band would play an Owens song each night on tour as a tribute.

“But we were also playing with pieces of other songs at sound check, just exploring his music.”

It resulted in an album.

“It was kind of like Buck's gift to me,” Yoakam says.

The album gave Yoakam even more time to write. He says he has “a considerable amount of material” in demo form, and he hopes to begin recording before year's end.

Yoakam is toying with the idea of taking some of the songs he's finished writing and recording them one at a time and releasing them individually.

“There's something freeing about that,” he says. “It was the way just about everybody did it. But that ended post-Sgt. Pepper's. My entire career I've had to think about a record as 10 to 12 songs, a body of work to be presented to a label. The paradigm has shifted, but nobody's certain about where it shifted to. We know from what but not to where.

“But I'm interested in looking into some different approaches. I've always been fortunate in that I can afford the time to let the music lead me.”

Still, he believes in a set of songs. “People don't call them records anymore, do they?” he says. “They're still records, records of music. The same way an album is a collection of material. I think it's funny that people forget the original term wasn't a definition of the format.”

So 2010 might bring a new Dwight Yoakam album or perhaps a collection of songs released individually online.

The guy who titled an album Tomorrow's Sounds Today wants to figure out how best to present his tomorrow sounds tomorrow.

Music Release - Have you checked?

It have been released last week. Why dont you check and try?

Washington, D.C., rapper Wale has generated underground buzz aplenty these past few years. But "Chillin," the lead single from his debut album, "Attention Deficit," left us cold. Surely he could do better than sampling Steam's "Na Na Hey Hey, Kiss Him Goodbye" and tapping Lady GaGa to imitate M.I.A. And he has. Musically, these 14 selections incorporate '70s Afro-funk ("Triumph"), vintage soul mixed with go-go ("Pretty Girls"), sinewy, barely-there electronic squiggles ("Let It Loose") and much more. His mix of producers is equally eclectic: TV on the Radio's Dave Sitek, Cool & Dre, the Neptunes, Green Lantern, and Mark Ronson. There are plenty of prominent cameos, too, including K'naan, Chrisette Michele, Jazmine Sullivan, and Pharrell. But this is definitely Wale's show, and one worth tuning in to.

What goes around comes around. In a recent issue of Rolling Stone, Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora likened the current economic climate to the tail end of the '80s, when Ronald Reagan's economic policies began faltering. Likewise, on "The Circle," the New Jersey rockers return to the sort of uplifting, working-class arena rock that initially brought them fame during Ronnie's administration, and move away from the Nashville influence of their previous full-length, "Lost Highway." Speaking of highways: Having racked up the No. 1 grossing tour of 2008, Bon Jovi will return to the road in 2010, with two years worth of shows in 30 countries already lined up, including a residency at London's O2 Arena.

Poor Britney Spears is running out of ways to seem racy. First there was the hooked-on-phonics naughtiness of "If U Seek Amy." And her latest smash, "3," is so mechanical it makes threesomes sound pretty ménage a blah. Nevertheless, the infectious ditty, another creation by evil Swedish genius Max Martin (Kelly Clarkson, Katy Perry, Pink), entered the pop charts at No. 1, the first record by any artist to do so in three years. However, if you've downloaded that song already, buying "The Singles Collection" seems redundant; there's nothing else new here, although the inclusion of recent hits like "Womanizer" and "Piece of Me" makes it a much stronger retrospective than 2004's "Greatest Hits: My Prerogative."

Who says Latin is a dead language? Not Flyleaf. The sophomore set from the Texas modern rock quintet is entitled "Memento Mori," a Latin expression that translates roughly as "remember you will die." Which is a backward way of summarizing the album's message to live life to its fullest. "Each day is a new beginning," says guitarist Sameer Bhattacharya. "It's never too late to become the kind of superhero you imagined you'd be when you were a kid." Singer and lyricist Lacey Mosley has one of those love-it-or-hate-it voices, a la Alanis Morissette. Yet it's hard to deny the melodramatic appeal of these 13 new selections, produced by Howard Benson (My Chemical Romance, Papa Roach, All-American Rejects).

Like Flyleaf, Switchfoot has enjoyed terrific success in the contemporary Christian market. But please don't pigeonhole the San Diego five-piece. New tunes like "Needle and Haystack Life" and "The Sound (John M. Perkins' Blues)" are polished, radio-friendly alt-rock comparable to U2 and Jane's Addiction, respectively. Those are just two highlights from "Hello Hurricane," their seventh full-length. Even if this collection of new tunes, produced by Dr. Dre and Eminem affiliate Mike Elizondo, isn't your cup of tea, you still have to admire Switchfoot's good intentions: Throughout their current North American tour, which concludes Dec. 9 in Boston, the band is conducting a canned food drive.
Listen to "Hello Hurricane" in the Listening Booth

Wyclef Jean is quite the humanitarian, too. Over the years, the Haitian-American hip-hop star has gone to great lengths to assist the people of his native country, via his Yéle Haiti charity. That cultural heritage also colored the material on "From the Hut, to the Projects, to the Mansion," a new concept record on which he assumes the role of Toussaint St. Jean, a character inspired by an 18th century revolutionary. His comrades-in-arms include Eve, Timbaland, and Cyndi Lauper, plus T.I.'s right-hand man, producer DJ Drama. Although "From the Hut" features 13 selections, it is billed as an EP; a new, self-titled Wyclef album is slated for release next spring.

New Music Release

This is review that i got. What type of music? Rock? Metal?

Rascal Flatts' third single from the album "Unstoppable" tackles what might be the group's darkest subject yet: the loss of a friend to suicide. A delicate piano melody anchors the song's beginning and end, providing the sole support for singer Gary LeVox's voice. In between, its instrumentation widens to include somber strings, a steadfast drumbeat and finally, a piercing electric guitar during the emotional climax. LeVox matches the mood with a vocal delivery that fluctuates between fragile and commanding. Co-songwriters Robert Mathes and Allen Shamblin weave an affecting story, using music as a metaphor for life. "Who told you life wasn't worth the fight," LeVox sings. "They were wrong, they lied/And now you're gone and we cried/'Cause it's not like you to walk away in the middle of a song." -Michael Menachem

The 43rd Annual CMA Awards

Why those tickets sold out?

All available tickets for "Country Music's Biggest Night" have been sold. "The 43rd Annual CMA Awards," hosted by Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood, airs live from the Sommet Center in Nashville, Wednesday, Nov. 11 (8:00-11:00 PM/ET) on the ABC Television Network.

Performers for the CMA Awards are: Jason Aldean, Brooks & Dunn, Kenny Chesney and Dave Mathews, Billy Currington, Vince Gill and Daughtry, Kid Rock and Jamey Johnson, Lady Antebellum, Miranda Lambert, Martina McBride, Reba McEntire, Tim McGraw, Brad Paisley, Darius Rucker, George Strait, Sugarland, Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban, and Zac Brown Band.

Presenters are Dale Earnhardt Jr., Neil Flynn, Patricia Heaton, Julianne Hough, Randy Houser, The Judds, Kid Rock, Kris Kristofferson, Jake Owen, Kellie Pickler, LeAnn Rimes, Robin Roberts, and Lee Ann Womack.


Love And Theft will host the Pre-Telecast Awards.


"The 43rd Annual CMA Awards" is a production of the Country Music Association. Robert Deaton is the Executive Producer, Paul Miller is the Director, and David Wild is the writer. The special will be shot in high definition and broadcast in 720 Progressive (720P), ABC's selected HDTV format, with 5.1 channel surround sound.

Premiere Radio Networks is the official radio packager of the CMA Awards. American Airlines is the official airline of the 2009 CMA Awards. Chevy: The Official Ride of Country Music.

Have You Heard About 'Coal Country Music'?

The raised voices accompanying the documentary Coal Country are familiar and persuasive.

Compiled on the accompanying Coal Country Music, they include folk and country giants from multiple generations, including Kentucky natives Jean Ritchie and Tom T. Hall, and Western Kentucky favorite son John Prine, who all but lived with strip-mining during his childhood in Muhlenberg County. There also were nationally visible artists including Gillian Welch and Natalie Merchant, who feel moved by the increasing public outcry over the mountaintop-removal coal-mining practices denounced in Coal Country.

A curious omission is Steve Earle, who publicly criticized mountaintop-removal mining at a performance in Lexington over the summer. But son Justin Townes Earle's roots-country-blues reading of Down in the Valley is a suitable stand-in. Valley is one of Coal Country Music's few exclusive tunes. Others include Beat on the Mountain, a wonderfully plain-spoken mining portrait that is the first new studio music from Jason and the Scorchers in more than 13 years (a full album is due next year), and an attractively low-fi home recording of Willie Nelson singing Blowin' in the Wind.

Much of the album's remaining tunes are thematically appropriate but are pulled from years-old and, sometimes, decades-old recordings. Still, there are surprises, including Ralph Stanley's ghostly reading of Keys to the Kingdom with the Cedar Hill Refugees, an ensemble that merges American and Uzbek mountain-music traditions. The song is sobering proof that it might take enormous force to move a mountain, but a greater might is required to leave it alone.

The film Coal Country is scheduled to air at 8 p.m. Saturday on the Planet Green TV network, Channel 221 on Lexington's Insight cable TV lineup.