Gone (CD - 1995)

Personnel: Dwight Yoakam (vocals, acoustic & electric guitars); James E. Bond Jr. (conductor); Dean Parks (acoustic guitar); Pete Anderson (electric guitar, electric sitar, harmonica); Tom Brumley (lap steel & pedal steel guitars); Scott Joss (fiddle); Lon Price (tenor saxophone); Greg Smith (baritone saxophone); Lee Thornburg (trumpet, trombone); Skip Edwards (accordion, piano, organ, keyboards); Taras Prodaniuk, Dusty Wakeman (bass); Jim Christie (drums); Tempo (percussion); Jim Lauderdale, Joy Lynn White (background vocals).

The Rembrandts: Phillip Solem, Danny Wilde (background vocals).

GONE was nominated for a 1997 Grammy Award for Best Country Album. "Nothing" was nominated for a 1997 Grammy for Best Male Country Vocal Performance.

Personnel: Dwight Yoakam (vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, hand claps, background vocals); Dean Parks (acoustic guitar); Pete Anderson (electric guitar, electric sitar, harmonica, hand claps); Tom Brumley (steel guitar); Scott Joss (fiddle); Skip Edwards (accordion, piano, organ, keyboards); Lon Price (tenor saxophone); Greg Smith (baritone saxophone); Lee Thornburg (trumpet, trombone); Jim Christie (drums); Dusty Wakeman, Gary White, Steve Moore (hand claps); Beth Andersen, Jim Haas, Danny Wilde, Jim Lauderdale, John Batdorf, Joy Lynn White, Maxi Anderson, Phil Solem, The Rembrandts, Tommy Funderburk, Carl Jackson, Carmen Twillie (background vocals).

Recording information: Cabin Studios; Capitol Studio B; Encore Studios; Skip Saylor Studios.

A startling moment in Dwight Yoakam's career, Gone fully integrates the early-'60s grooving rock and R&B of Doc Pomus and Lieber and Stoller with the hard honky tonk of the Bakersfield sound with the regional touches that have become so prevalent on his records (note the opening track here, "Sorry You Asked?," with its mariachi horns in the refrains and bridge). And sometimes they all occur in the same song such as on the title track here where the Farfisa sound of Tex-Mex, Doug Sahm-style rock meets Chuck Berry's guitar riffing meets Buck Owens country, and all of it is Yoakam. Then there's "Gone" with its Hammond B-3 and string section that could be an early rock anthem from the New York street corners if it weren't for Yoakam's restless Kentucky voice crooning in the swinging Texas wind. Even the straight rock & roll of "Never Hold You," with its psychedelic guitar fills before its "C.C. Rider" -- à la Mitch Ryder not Charlie Rich -- refrain turns on a country-rock dime. Pete Anderson is a guitar slinger maximus who may have been schooled by the Buckaroos' Don Rich's style, but he plays with the razor-sharp intensity of the Detroit rocker he is. While it's true that those who long for Yoakam's pure honky tonk style may be lost a bit here, with a few spins they'll get it. Yoakam's music has been a thrill to witness as it has developed. Gone is the work of a singular talent with input from many different sources, from instrumentalists and horn and string sections to a dozen backing vocalists all used on different tracks. As the album closes with "Heart of Stone," a co-write with Kostas, you hear Yoakam go back to where modern country music came from in the first place: In the cascading strings that fall over the face of the mix, the band slide in behind them and the ghosts of Jim Reeves and Patsy Cline enter the singer and intone the kind heartbreak that can only be voiced in a country song. Chalk up another winner for Yoakam. ~ Thom Jurek

Dwight Yoakam always had an obsession with tradition. What has changed in the decade since he debuted with a famously pure honky-tonk homage to George Jones, Hank Williams and Buck Owens is his idea of what tradition is. For Yoakam, it now includes '50s rock, The Beatles, Cajun music and, most audacious of all, Memphis soul.

Every song on GONE is pure to a fault. "Nothing" acquires its soul through a Southern organ, call-and-response horns, and perfectly placed strings; "Baby Why Not" features a blisteringly dead-on Cajun accordion; "Never Hold You" is a '60s guitar-rock raveup that employs the voices of pop revivalists the Rembrandts; and, with the exception of its Tex-Mex horn solo, "Sorry You Asked," a honky-tonker in which a guy bores a friend to death with the mundane details of why his girlfriend left him, is a dead ringer for recent George Jones.

What's not pure is the sweep of the whole album, which ends up sounding unlike either roots-rock or traditionalist country. GONE sounds more like a roots-of-everything record. Yoakam and producer/guitarist Pete Anderson put it together with a vibrancy and urgency that makes it seem less of a look back, and more of a step forward for country music. minimize