THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Brighter Days is the first new studio album in nine years from multiple Grammy winner and country superstar Dwight Yoakam.
Written and recorded over the last three years, Brighter Days features 12 brand-new songs written and co-written by Yoakam, as well as threedisparate covers — Keep On The Sunny Side by The Carter Family, Bound Away by Cake, and Time Between by The Byrds — artfully woven into the same body of work in the unmistakable style that could only could from Yoakam.
At once timeless and timely, Yoakam’s self-produced Brighter Days infuses a modern appreciation for country music’s history with the trailblazing rock ’n’ roll spirit of California. The result is an album that reflects a sense of craftsmanship and immediacy, capturing the quintessential Dwight cool that has set him apart from his country contemporaries since the beginning of his legendary career. As always, Yoakam’s lyrics throughout the album are both deceptively effortless and profoundly poignant. The album was mixed by world-class engineer Chris Lord-Alge.
In 1977, Yoakam left Kentucky for Nashville to embark on a music career but found that the Music City was moving away from traditional country roots to more pop-country. He found himself better suited to the post-Bakersfield movement and became one of the founding fathers of the L.A. cowpunk scene influenced by second-wave rockabilly and punk alongside X, Los Lobos, The Knitters, Rank & File and The Blasters.
Yoakam has gone on to see over 26 million albums worldwide, with five reaching the No. 1 spot on Billboard. He has been nominate for Grammys 21 times. He has 12 gold albums and nine platinum or multi-platinum awards. Yoakam is the recipient of the Artist of the Year Award from the Americana Music Association, the prestigious BMI Country Awards’ President’s Award, and has been inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. He has collaborated with everyone from Beck to Kid Rock, ZZ Top, Hunter S. Thompson and Jack White. He has toured with Buck Owens, Johnny Cash and Hüsker Dü. His last album, Swimmin’ Pools, Movie Stars…, was released in 2016.
In addition to his musical career, Yoakam has appeared in more than 40 feature films including Sling Blade, Panic Room and Steven Soderbergh’s Logan Lucky, plus a role in the TV series Goliath. Over the course of his storied acting career he has worked with the likes of Jodie Foster, Tommy Lee Jones, Jared Leto, Matthew McConaughey and more.”
