Dwight Lightning

SPOTLIGHT

dwight Yoakam

wields himself like white lightning, using his guitar to clear away cobwebs. He tomcats onstage in dungarees that won't let go, his head screwed into the socket of a cowboy hat, his boots picking a path through the brambles. Like Elvis, the original hillbilly cat, he's a real swivel-hips. It's a compact swivel —unlike Elvis, Yoakam isn't one to let his hips do all the talking. Owner of a ranch in California, he is country music's rhinestone scholar. Asked to define "hillbilly," he responds, "It's a colloquial reference to a segment of the population that is culturally ethnic." A boot in each stirrup, Yoakam strides the divide between rock's lust and country's lament. His first two albums, Hillbilly Deluxe and Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc., took the generic themes of country music on a neoclassical joyride. His song cycle Buenas Noches from a Lonely Room was a motel tour of tearstained pillows and bloodstained walls. Yoakam's forthcoming album strikes a lighter shade of lamentation. Consisting of eleven tracks (with three bonus numbers on the CD version), There Was a Way is, he says, "more adventures of the heart," but this time "nobody gets killed."

After some acoustic appearances in the fall, Yoakam will make a more ambitious concert swing next spring. He belongs on the road. White lightning was meant to travel, and Yoakam's patented sulk travels in trim style. With our old friend heartache just around the bend.

JAMES WOLCOTT