Reprise Please Baby: The Warner Bros. Years
Though Dwight Yoakam casts himself as the classic outsider, no contemporary country artist has been able to achieve more mainstream success while retaining more alternative credibility. This four-disc set (including more than an entire disc of previously unreleased material) documents the uniqueness of Yoakam's musical legacy, as he combines a core commitment to the hard twang of honky-tonk--in breakthrough hits such as "Guitars, Cadillacs" and theBuck Owensduet "Streets of Bakersfield--with a stylistic expansiveness that knows no limits. In addition to his underrated strength as a songwriter, no other country artist could extend himself fromQueen("Crazy Little Thing Called Love") toCheap Trick("I Want You to Want Me") to theClash("Train in Vain"), while paying the obligatory tributes toElvis Presley,George Jones, andMerle Haggard. The three new recordings may be inconsequential (a shuffle rendition of "Mercury Blues" holds the most interest), but the archive of previously unreleased material includes a 10-song demo from 1981 (before Yoakam's pivotal pairing with guitarist/producer/bandleader Pete Anderson), two duets withKelly Willis, and the eight live performances that conclude the set.--Don McLeese