Dwight Live
Dwight Live, with its generous helping of 17 songs, provides a useful summary of Yoakam's career thus far. He's recorded all but one of the songs before, but the six numbers from the '80s are deepened by everything Yoakam and his terrific band have learned from their years on the road, and the six numbers from his '93 album,This Time, are liberated from their radio-ready studio arrangements to kick up a little dust. For example, the come-back-home plea of the '87 hit, "Please, Please Baby," takes on a new urgency as Yoakam and the band make the swing beat really jump. And the title tune of the '93 album has a new swagger to it.Dwight Liveopens and closes withElvis Presleysongs, "Little Sister" and "Suspicious Minds," a reminder of how Yoakam has infused hillbilly music with boisterous rhythms, much as the King once did. By contrast, Yoakam delivers "Miner's Prayer" from his first album in an unplugged version and follows it withBill Monroe's "Rocky Road Blues," the one song he hadn't recorded before. The indisputable highlight, however, is a six-minute version of "Long White Cadillac,"Dave Alvin's immortal song aboutHank Williams's last ride. Yoakam moans and wails like a man pursued by hellhounds, and Anderson's guitar notes sound like those snarling, yapping dogs themselves.--Geoffrey Himes