FUCK YEAH OHIO

nprfreshair:

Dwight Yoakam persists in mixing genres in a way that may leave him out of the country mainstream, but puts him in a good position to make a personal album with some of his best music. Yoakam has been trying to carve out his place in the music industry for decades now, with regular side-trips into the film industry as an actor. In a way, this is a key to the difficulty he’s had maintaining the visibility he deserves. The feeling that Yoakam is acting out the role of a country star, and the idea that he not-so-secretly feels he’s slightly above the genre he tries to write hits for, is a feeling that persists among many. Yoakam’s admirers, of whom I am very much one, see him differently. As is abundantly clear on his new album 3 Pears, he declines to fit into market categories for very long, jumping within each album from nasal-nirvana honky-tonk to ringing pop-rock songs such as “A Heart Like Mine.”

- Ken Tucker reviews Dwight Yoakam’s new album, 3 Pears

Dwight Yoakam, while highly respected as a musician and actor, is still underrated in my book. 

Previously on Fuck Yeah Ohio…