Dwight Yoakam | dual personalities

Three notes and the truth

by chuckofish

So I don’t know about you, but for the last two weeks I’ve been watching Ken Burns’ newest 16-hour documentary, Country Music, as it premiered on PBS.

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It was 90% pretty great. The first episode and the last episode seemed a bit tacked on and the narrative muddled, but the rest of it, which was pure history, was wonderful.

I learned a lot and I was reminded of a lot I had forgotten. I especially enjoyed the commentary by Marty Stuart, Dwight Yoakam, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton, Brenda Lee, and Ricky Skaggs. It was a treat to see them.

I was not brought up on country music. In our house we listened to classical music and broadway musicals. We had some Kingston Trio, Harry Belafonte and Tijuana Brass records. Our older brother bought Beatles records and Bob Dylan records, but when he learned to play the guitar, he branched out quite a bit. Our mother never really approved of his interest in country artists and didn’t understand why he would try to sing like Jimmie Rodgers. But through him I became acquainted with Doc Watson, Bill Monroe and a host of bluegrass and country musicians.

Years later, when my own children were little, we started listening to country radio in the car (better, I thought, than the Backstreet Boys) and we became fans. We even traveled to Nashville several times and went to the Grand Ole Opry! It was all great fun and my children learned something about a whole other great segment of the country.

And it was great fun to go down memory lane, so to speak, with Ken Burns.

Here’s cousin Dwight Yoakam and Buck Owens:

You don’t know me, but you don’t like me/ You say you care less how I feel/ But how many of you that sit and judge me/ Have ever walked the streets of Bakersfield?

That just says it all, right?

Anyway, if you didn’t watch the documentary, take a look. I’m sure it can be found at PBS or streaming somewhere soon.

Have a good weekend. I think it will be a rainy one here and, therefore, probably a quiet one. Maybe we’ll get out out the old CDs and listen to some Johnny Cash. Sounds like a plan…

2 Comments

March 16, 2017

It is well with my soul

by chuckofish

Here is a very popular song playing on Christian radio these days:

I admit it always makes me tear up. Every time.

Christian songwriters these days frequently lift lines right from older hymns or, as in this song, reference other songs: “Give me the strength/To be able to sing/It is well with my soul”.

You will recall that “It Is Well With My Soul” is a well known hymn penned by Horatio Spafford and composed by Philip Bass which was first published in Gospel Songs No. 2 by Sankey and Bliss (1876). Everyone from Tennessee Ernie Ford and Mahalia Jackson to Dwight Yoakam and Jars of Clay have recorded it. The Georgia Southern University marching band Southern Pride even plays the song at the end of each win.

I think that’s interesting, but, then, that’s how my mind works.

Nicely done, Dwight. Have a good day. Here’s hoping it is well with your soul.

4 Comments

October 23, 2015

Home again, home again, jiggety-jig

by chuckofish

Yesterday daughter #1 rode in from NYC for a little flyover R&R.

This time she will not be running in a half marathon but recovering from one she ran two weeks ago on Staten Island. ‘Taking it easy’ will be the byword for the weekend.

(Aren’t those white Keds the cutest things ever?)

I must also note that today is the birthday of my distant cousin, Dwight Yoakam!

Old Dwight (who is my age) has had quite a career. Fifteen-time Grammy nominee and three-time winner, his music career has been stellar indeed. But he must be congratulated for doing a great job of transitioning from country music heart-throb to “character actor.”