Dwight Yoakam, Jobe Fortner
Overture Center-Overture Hall 201 State St., Madison, Wisconsin 53703
Maria Nagel
Dwight Yoakam
Dwight Yoakam managed to achieve massive commercial and artistic success in country music in the 1980s and ’90s by following his muse rather than doing what everyone else was doing at the time. His revival of the Bakersfield sound (think Buck Owens) was a breath of fresh air when he started notching major hits, and his continued divergence from what has happened to country radio has made him a standard-bearing legend. Oh, and he’s a pretty good actor, too (Sling Blade, Painted Hero). With Jobe Fortner.
press release: Multiple Grammy Award winner, Dwight Yoakam, will perform at Overture Hall on January 16, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are on sale Friday, October 18, at the Overture box office, by phone at 608-258-4141, or online www.overture.org. Tickets prices are $35.50, $55, $65 & $95 plus fees.
Dwight Yoakam has sold more than 25 million albums worldwide, and he is a 21-time nominated, multiple GRAMMY Award winner. He has 12 gold albums and 9 platinum or multi-platinum albums, with five of those albums topping Billboard’s Country Albums chart and another 14 landing in the Top 10. Nearly 40 of Yoakam’s singles have charted on Billboard, with 14 peaking in the Top 10.
In September of 2016, Yoakam released his first ever bluegrass album, Swimmin’ Pools, Movie Stars…, on Sugar Hill Records. Featuring a band of bluegrass luminaries, this album boasts a collection of reinterpreted favorites from his catalogue, as well as a cover of Prince’s “Purple Rain.” Produced by nine-time GRAMMY winner Gary Paczosa (Alison Krauss, Dolly Parton), Jon Randall (songwriter of “Whiskey Lullaby”), and Yoakam himself, and mixed by Chris Lord-Alge, this album reflects the love for bluegrass music that Yoakam developed at an early age in Kentucky and that has inspired him for many years thereafter.
In 2015, Yoakam released his album Second Hand Heart on Warner/Reprise records, the follow up to his critically-acclaimed album 3 Pears. He received the Artist of the Year award at the 2013 Americana Music Honors & Awards ceremony, the most prestigious award offered by the organization. In addition to his musical career, Yoakam is a formidable film and television actor whose films include Sling Blade and The Newton Boys. In 2016, he recurred in David E. Kelley’s Amazon series, Goliath. Recently, he appeared in director Steven Soderbergh’s film Logan Lucky with Channing Tatum and Daniel Craig. Yoakam is capable of seamlessly melting into his roles and impressively standing toe-to-toe with some of the world’s top thespians over the course of his storied and successful acting career, including Jodie Foster, Tommy Lee Jones, Jared Leto, Forest Whitaker, and Matthew McConaughey.