Dwight Yoakam

Dwight Yoakam is a legendary artist whose influence has reshaped the landscape of country music and beyond. With over 25 million albums sold worldwide, he is a 21-time GRAMMY® nominee and multiple GRAMMY® Award winner. His catalog includes 12 gold albums and 9 platinum or multi-platinum releases, with five topping Billboard Country Albums chart and 14 landing in the Top 10. Nearly 40 of his singles have charted on Billboard, including 14 Top 10 hits. 

A recipient of the Americana Music Association’s Artist of the Year award and BMI Country Music’s President’s Award, the highest honors bestowed by each organization, Yoakam was also inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2019. 

His latest release, Brighter Days (Via Records/Thirty Tigers), marks his first new album in nine years. Released in November 2024, the album was written and recorded over a three-year period and features twelve brand-new songs written or co-written by Yoakam. It also includes three seemingly disparate covers: “Keep On the Sunny Side” by the Carter Family, “Bound Away” by Cake, and “Time Between” by Chris Hillman of The Byrds, artfully woven into the same body of work in the unmistakable style that could only be Dwight Yoakam. 

A passionate curator of musical heritage, Yoakam launched his SiriusXM channel Dwight Yoakam and The Bakersfield Beat: Where Country Went Mod in 2018, spotlighting the Bakersfield sound and its far-reaching influence. The channel celebrates the Bakersfield sound and those whom it has inspired. Guests have included Post Malone, Lukas Nelson, Beck, Chris Hillman, Jakob Dylan, and Jackie DeShannon. 

In 2016, Yoakam released Swimmin’ Pools, Movie Stars..., on Sugar Hill Records. Featuring a band of bluegrass luminaries, this album boasts a collection of reinterpreted favorites from his catalogue, as well as a cover of Prince’s “Purple Rain”. Produced by nine-time GRAMMY® winner Gary Paczosa (Alison Krauss, Dolly Parton), Jon Randall (songwriter of “Whiskey Lullaby”), and Yoakam himself, and mixed by Chris Lord-Alge, this album reflects the love for bluegrass music that Yoakam developed at an early age in Kentucky and that has inspired him for many years thereafter. In 2018, Yoakam released two songs, “Pretty Horses” and “Then Came Monday” (the latter written with Chris Stapleton). 

Yoakam is a multifaceted artist, seamlessly blending his musical talents with a robust acting career. He has appeared in over 40 feature films, including notable roles in Sling Blade (1996) and Panic Room (2002). He later reunited with Billy Bob Thornton for David E. Kelley’s Amazon series Goliath. Yoakam portrayed Warden Burns in Steven Soderbergh's Logan Lucky (2017) alongside Channing Tatum and Daniel Craig and took on the role of Howard Polk in Clint Eastwood's Cry Macho (2021). Throughout his career, he has demonstrated his acting range alongside acclaimed actors such as Jodie Foster, Tommy Lee Jones, Jared Leto, Forest Whitaker, and Matthew McConaughey. 

Whether on stage, in the studio, or on screen, Yoakam continues to evolve as one of the most compelling and culturally significant artists of our time.

WITH SPECIAL GUEST - WESKO

Looking out from land-locked Duplin County in southeast North Carolina, Wesko crafts hearty and heavy country music offering a clear-eyed glimpse at life in 21st century America. The man born Wesley Keith Holmes embraces traditional sounds of the genre — where you can still write a proper tune with only "three chords and the truth," he contends — to illuminate the real in the stories he tells of busted hearts, hard times, tough wins, big celebrations, and coming together to get through it all. 

Wesko grew up in "the boonies," rasied by his mom on a steady diet of gritty '90s rock and classic twang. Eventually he came to love the music of fellow Tarheel Eric Church, plus Tyler Childers and Jason Isbell, but he only started playing out of boredom. At 19, between attending University of Mount Olive and working as an erosion control foreman, he was on the road a lot, and picked up a guitar to pass the time — it became a passion. Within a year he was writing songs, and at age 21 he stepped onstage for the first time on a dare from a stranger at a Nashville bar, bringing the hush over the venue and people in off the street. Though he still runs a log loader at his family's sawmill, Wesko's been on the path since, sharing unplugged sets that underscore his raw talent, playing the Concert For Carolina benefit at Luke Combs' request, and releasing a string of moving singles like "Mr. Tennessee," about a long-distance love doomed by the subject's refusal to leave North Carolina. Producer Ross Copperman (Luke Bryan, Kenny Chesney, Keith Urban) once dubbed his songs "grown-a** man music." Why? As Wesko puts it: "Because it means something. We're not talking about nothing. These songs speak to the culture I grew up in, to the people I've known my whole life, to what made me who I am."