Tomorrow evening, my husband and I, along with some friends, are going to the Big Sky Brewing Co. Amphitheater in Missoula to see Dwight Yoakam and The Mavericks. It’s going to be about 200 degrees, there won’t be a stick of shade, and I could not be more excited.
I’ve seen both performers before when I lived in San Diego. Yoakam at the Del Mar Fair, and The Mavericks at 4th and B, but those shows were years (and I mean years) ago. I think my recollection of the two concerts can be directly connected to how much I liked both artists at the time. The Mavericks were amazing. However, I remember exactly nothing about Dwight’s show.
I have always loved The Mavericks. From their early “What a Cryin Shame” days to their more recent work, including their 2020 album which is sung entirely in Spanish. I once read a review of one of their albums in which the reviewer described lead singer Raul Malo’s voice as “Jalapeno and Honey”. I don’t think I could come up with a better description if I spent 100 years thinking about it. And it only makes sense, seeing as how Malo is Cuban, and that Latin influence is heard and – felt – in almost everything The Mavericks produce. “Dance The Night Away” is a masterpiece, a song I never get tired of hearing, and a classic example of how they incorporate that Latin sound. I mean…those horns!
The Mavericks, as their name suggests, have always been impossible to categorize, musically, and I think that has been one of the reasons they’ve consistently been among my favorites.
On the other hand, with Dwight Yoakam, there was a time when not only was he not a favorite, I didn’t even like him. He was too twangy, too nasal, too…all of the other reasons some people don’t care for his music. And then one day my friend Autumn, a huge Dwight fan, told me I needed to get the new Dwight Yoakam album (Tomorrow’s Sounds Today) because “You appreciate excellent music.”
Well. I couldn’t allow such a fine opinion go to waste, so I bought the CD, just to see what all the fuss was about, and it was that album, and in particular, this song that converted me – hard.
The thing about Dwight Yoakam that I never appreciated until I really started to pay attention is that his ability as a songwriter is on par with Dylan, Young, Prine, and any of the other “Masters” you can name. Take the lyrics for “Time Spent Missing You”:
“The nighttime gets longer each morning I wake up
With sunlight that’s long overdue
I start making plans for having thoughts that might take up
Some of the time that I’ll spend missing you
Winters come a crawling after fall left me calling
For an end to what spring put me through
Summers only blessing had been the warm breeze caressing
All the time that I spent missing you
Minutes of misery drag through hours of memories
Past a voice that swears they’re not true
It keeps avoiding, denying though but mostly just lying
About the time that I’ll spend missing you”
How great is that?
Or how about “The Distance Between You and Me”?
“Take a rock, tie a rope
Throw it down in the sea
Let it fall to the bottom
Nobody knows how deep
Stare real hard through the water
And you might just perceive
The distance between you and me
Yeah, the distance between you and me
Take a map of the world
And measure with your hands
All of the miles
Across all of the land
Write it down, add it up
And you might understand
About the distance between you and me
Yeah, the distance between you and me
I lie awake and hear you breathing
Only inches from me in this bed
Not much space but it’s all that we needed
To live alone now that our love is dead
I lie awake and hear you breathing
Only inches from me in this bed
Not much space but it’s all that we needed
To live alone now that our love is dead
Climb the earth’s tallest mountain
To where it reaches the sky
Take a gun fire a bullet
Straight up out of sight
Where it stops in the heavens
Well that ain’t half as high
As the distance between you and me
As the distance between you and me”
Once I started appreciating his songwriting skills, it didn’t take long for me to also start enjoying the music. Suddenly, I liked the twang and the “Bakersfield Sound” that he has perfected. The pure, undistilled, honky tonk heaven that is “Turn It On, Turn It Up, Turn It Loose” has become one of my favorite songs – of all time. He has also done some incredible covers – “Let’s Work Together” (Canned Heat), “I Want You to Want Me” (Cheap Trick), and “Sloop John B” (Beach Boys), just to name a few.
So, it’s a two-hour drive, it will be very people-y (not a huge fan of crowds), and I’ll probably get burnt to a crisp, but getting to experience these two fantastic acts again? Totally worth it.