Singer-songwriter Dwight Yoakam has lived in Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee. But coming up during the 1980s in the clubs of L.A. and the San Fernando Valley, you might say his style is more California Country than anything.
Yoakam recently sold out The Roxy for a concert benefitting Children’s Hospital, Los Angeles. The 69-year-old musician and actor had a lot of backup from a younger generation of country acts.
He was joined on stage by Grammy-nominated people like Lukas Nelson — as in Willie’s son — guitar prodigy Marcus King and others.
“It’s flattering on a personal level that five artists of that generation would come and collaborate with me to do this. But more importantly it was gratifying to hear their response to the charitable cause of Children’s Hospital,” Yoakam said.
Yoakam and wife, Emily Joyce, had a very personal inspiration for organizing the benefit concert. In 2020, during the peak of COVID, their own infant son was seen at Children’s Hospital. They were relieved it was nothing, but an experience Emily relayed to Yoakam changed him.
“She heard the little boy behind in another recovery bed come to. Five or six. And his eyes opened — I guess his father was there with him at his bedside. And he said ‘Was I brave daddy?’ And I said: ‘Wow, it puts everything in life in quick perspective.’"
Yoakam said the experience stuck with Joyce so much that she was determined to put a benefit show together. And it was heartening having so many of his friends back him up for the "Rockin’ for the Kids" concert, Yoakam said. The night even had a surprise on-stage FaceTime call from actor Billy Bob Thornton. The actor and director — who cast Yoakam in his 1996 film Sling Blade — was originally scheduled to help emcee the event, but was stuck at an iced out movie shoot in New Jersey.
Los Angeles calling
Yoakam came out to the warm California sun in the late 70s, and it wasn’t long before he was gigging hard at long gone honky-tonks like The Palomino and The Corral in the San Fernando Valley.
“[I] spent a year of my life on the off nights [at The Corral] — let me tell you — that’s the real world,” Yoakam recalled. “The time I was out there doing, you know, five sets a night. You’d start at nine and end at two in the morning... And you know I really made my bones there.”
It wasn’t long before Yoakam’s California Country music was mixing and merging with a new scene in L.A. One that blended the punk rock ethos with the twang of country.
“The crossroads of time and place happened again in the early 80s with the quote ‘Cowpunk’ movement. A lot of them were punk rock bands. Like The Dills became Rank and File. The Plugz — with a Z — became Los Cruzados,” Yoakam said.
He would go on to share the bill with bands like X and The Blasters. And Yoakam was embraced by crowds of punk rockers too.
“I said, ‘You know what? We don’t have to play The Roundup out in the Valley, we don’t have to play just The Palomino. I said ‘We can go over the hill,’” he said.
Yoakam remembered it was Bill Bentley, a former music editor for the LA Weekly, who saw him performing at The Palomino and then invited him to play Club Lingerie on Sunset Blvd.
“That introduced me to a different audience. And then we started playing... the rock n’ roll side of the hill,” Yoakam said.
By 1986, Yoakam was playing at The Roxy for the record release party for “Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc. Etc.” The live performance was recorded and included on later releases of the album.
“We did the record release party, 40 years ago in March, at The Roxy. It was kind of a full-circle moment. Interesting book-end, if you will, from 1986 to now,” Yoakam said.
Yoakam will play Ontario’s ONT Field on March 21, right before heading out on tour with ZZ Top.
Tickets are available via Ticketmaster.
