Starting with Blame the Vain, I’ve used my live band for recording. How did you get that sound? You’re hearing a sense of abandon. If I didn’t know better before hearing Second Hand Heart, I would have thought, that’s a good band album. It’s obvious that even after nine platinum albums, two Grammys, and countless other career milestones, the man from Pikeville, Kentucky, remains an ardent student of American roots music. On the phone from Los Angeles, Yoakam had the easygoing enthusiasm of the guy sitting on the next barstool, sometimes making his points by singing them. You’re not going to see me out there sliding across the stage on my knees, flailing away at lead runs.”

But they’re also full of enough little surprises to keep you guessing-and enough rocking riffs to make you want to grab an axe and play along.

The songs, written mostly by Yoakam, are built on a classic country-rock foundation of twangy guitars, first-position chord progressions, and, of course, Yoakam’s hillbilly-tinged vocals. In contrast to the Auto-Tuned, arena-rock sound that’s been ruling the country charts, Second Hand Heart sounds pure, direct, and unvarnished. Yet in some ways, Yoakam falls as far outside the Nashville mainstream as he did back in the 1980s. Now, after more than a decade on indie labels and major-label subsidiaries, he’s back on Reprise.

brought lean muscle to a country music scene that was pudgy around the middle. Nearly 30 years ago, the honky-tonk energy of his debut album Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc. Long before the term “Americana” was in the musical lexicon, he was blending rootsy sounds that resonated with the traditionalists in cowboy boots while it won over a healthy chunk of rockers (or maybe it was the other way around). Yet in the end, Yoakam brought it home, closing the circle by explaining what all of this had to do with his current touring and recording band, and how they brought sonic power to his new album, Second Hand Heart.Īctually, “full circle” is a good way to describe Yoakam, circa 2015. For 10 minutes, he riffed on Buck Owens, the evolution of country rock, and why he chose to self-produce after years of collaborating with legendary guitarist/producer Pete Anderson. But he also hadn’t forgotten that he was answering a question about the high-energy sound of his new album. “This all comes full circle.” Dwight Yoakam was on a storyteller’s roll too good to interrupt, and he knew it.

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