A Long Way Home (CD - 1998)

Personnel includes: Dwight Yoakam (vocals, acoustic guitar); Pete Anderson (acoustic, electric & lap steel guitar, hand claps, finger snaps); Dean Parks (acoustic guitar); Marty Rifkin (pedal steel, dobro); Ralph Stanley (banjo, background vocals); Scott Joss (fiddle); Skip Edwards (keyboards); Taras Prodaniuk (bass); Charles Domanico (upright bass); Jim Christie (drums); Tempo (percussion); Tommy Funderburk, Beth Andersen, Bonnie Bramlett Sheridan, Jim Lauderdale, Carl Jackson (background vocals).

Personnel: Dwight Yoakam (vocals, acoustic guitar); Ralph Stanley (vocals, banjo, background vocals); Beth Andersen, Bonnie Sheridan, Jim Lauderdale, Tommy Funderburk, Carl Jackson (vocals, background vocals); Pete Anderson (acoustic guitar, electric guitar, lap steel guitar, hand claps); Dean Parks (acoustic guitar); Marty Rifkin (dobro); Scott Joss (fiddle); Skip Edwards (piano, Wurlitzer organ, keyboards); Chuck Domanico (upright bass); Jim Christie (drums); Tempo (percussion).

Audio Mixers: David Leonard; Judy Clapp.

Recording information: Board Room, Nashville, TN; Mad Dog Studios, Burbank, CA.

Photographers: Randee Saint Nicholas; Linda Cobb.

Unknown Contributor Role: Murray Adler.

Arranger: Pete Anderson.

Early in his career, Yoakam might have come off as modern-day Buck Owens (a tag he certainly did nothing to discourage), practicing a contemporary variant on the Bakersfield sound. As he released album after album of classic country tunes full of the kind of barnstormers and ballads that would've made Uncle Buck proud, though, it became plain that Yoakam was an institution unto himself. On A LONG WAY HOME, he continues to do what he's done for years; make eloquent, intelligent, exciting country music, with the help of longtime producer/right-hand man Pete Anderson.

Yoakam can deliver a bitterly clever lyric like no one else, a fact borne out by "The Curse" and "Things Change." He can also inject some foot-stomping rock & roll into the proceedings, as on the closing rave-up "Maybe You Like It, Maybe You Don't." LONG WAY HOME serves to prove that the Yoakam name is the equivalent of a stamp that reads, "aesthetic quality guaranteed." minimize