DWIGHT YOAKAM
Brighter Days (Thirty Tigers)
IT WOULD BE EASY to get carried away on a wave of excitement having a first Dwight Yoakam album in nearly 10 years. And not just because of – but certainly not without reference to – very recent events in the world that made us question our fellow humans and look for joy somewhere. Anywhere.
Easy to ride the up-tempo honky tonk (let’s dance!), soak in the downtempo honky tonk (let’s cry) and coast on the general, though not exclusively, positive attitude of this honky tonk record (let’s be happy, because Dwight sure is).
Easy, yes. Too easy perhaps. But still not wrong, because this is a joy of a record that serves as a tonic for the times and the gin punch of a good life.
He’s married, with child, and brighter days are already here; the rest of us can hope and crank this up in the meantime. Maybe even beginning with the middle of the record’s I Don’t Know How To Say Goodbye (Bang Bang Boom Boom) whose hardly serious title gives you a sense of the loose-shouldered swing and bantering vocals of Yoakam and new school partner, Post Malone – a man whose face tattoos would have given the old gatekeepers at the Ryman serious conniptions back in the day, even before they heard he used to do that hippity hoppity stuff.
That said, Yoakam remains as past-conscious as any new traditionalist, steeped in the airy tone, elongated phrasing, bright guitar punch and two-stepping of his heroes. But 40 years into his career he is just as committed to the idea that while the West Coast is, to borrow one of his lines, a thousand miles from nowhere (country music industry-wise), it’s long been the perfect place to cross-fertilise.
There’s a proper surf city rollicking feel to Wide Open Heart, whose drums are hit to within an inch of their lives but remain rolling rather than punishing, and then California Sky brings together a downtown stroll, a pop band backing vocal, and a high-sky spaciousness. I Spell Love leans into Roy Orbison in the choruses and leans back to something more like Roger Miller in the verses, takes the clip-clop rhythm into a valley where it’s met by a suddenly stern upright bass, and then brings it out again with a touch of Elvis.
Oh, yes, I almost forgot, that song takes up some Prince-like spelling as Yoakam – besotted by his relatively new partner and even newer young son – declares “I spell love, L-O-V-U.”
The hiccup in the voice is still here too. In the hurt locker of Hand Me Down Heart, he plays that out slowly over the thick organ and rich, old style backing choir, and does it more briskly in the big-stepping (heavy drums on the floor, deep male voices on the echo) Keep On The Sunny Side. Though to prove there’s still areas for him to venture anew, we get an extra edge, a bit of the guttural, replacing any fun times hiccupping in the blues bar boogie of Can’t Be Wrong, where the guitars lash more.
By the time Every Night takes us out with its tinkling piano and skipping beat, its Texas guitar and Memphis organ, it is possible you’ve forgotten the hell-in-a-handbasket state of the world. At least for the 50-odd minutes Yoakam’s been occupying your attention. And if it doesn’t last, hit repeat. Lord knows it may be our last/best hope for the next four, or more, years.
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