Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc. (CD - 1986)

Personnel: Dwight Yoakam (vocals, acoustic guitar, background vocals); Maria McKee (vocals); Pete Anderson (electric guitar, 6-string bass); Jay Dee Maness, Ed Black (pedal steel); David Mansfield (mandolin, dobro); Brantley Kearns (fiddle, background vocals); Glen D. Hardin, Gene Taylor (piano); J.D. Foster (bass, background vocals); Jeff Donavan (drums).

Engineers: Dusty Wakeman (tracks 1, 5-6, 10); Brian Levi (tracks 2-4, 7-9).

Recorded at Excalibur Studio, Studio City, California and Capitol Studio B, Hollywood, California.

Personnel: Dwight Yoakam (vocals, guitar); Jerry McGee (guitar); Jay Dee Maness (pedal steel guitar); David Mansfield (mandolin); Glen D. Hardin (piano); Robert Wilson (bass guitar); Stu Perry (drums).

Just as Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson had done a decade-plus earlier, Dwight Yoakam arrived out of left field in the mid '80s with a fresh, honest sound that breathed fresh air into what had become a bland, commercialized country music scene. The later-for-the-b.s. New Traditionalist movement had already gotten under way via such artists as Rosanne Cash and John Anderson, but Yoakam hammered the message home in a major way, appealing to the pop/rock audience with his swaggering, bad-boy image and visceral approach.

GUITARS, CADILLACS, ETC., ETC. set the template Yoakam would follow for much of his career. The album is heavily influenced by the mid-'60s Bakersfield sound of Merle Haggard and (especially) Buck Owens. Some of the songs here are updated versions of old-school country classics (Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire," Johnny Horton's "Honky Tonk Man"), but even Yoakam's original tunes sound like they were cut from the same vintage cloth. minimize