Dwight Yoakam: A Thousand Miles From Nowhere

In Dwight Yoakam, award-winning music journalist DON MCLEESE offers the first musical biography of this acclaimed artist. Tracing the seemingly disparate influences in Yoakam's music, Don shows how Dwight has combined rock and roll, rockabilly, country, blues, and gospel into a seamless whole. In particular, Don explores the essential issue of "authenticity" and how it applies to Yoakam, as well as to country music and popular culture in general. Drawing on wide-ranging interviews with Yoakam and his management, while also benefitting from the perspectives of others closely associated with his musical success (including producer-guitarist Pete Anderson, Yoakam's partner throughout his most popular and creative decades), Dwight Yoakam pays tribute to the musician who has established himself as a visionary beyond time, an artist who could title an album Tomorrow's Sounds Today and deliver it.

Don McLeese was formerly the pop music critic for the Chicago Sun-Times and the Austin American-Statesman as well as country columnist and contributor to Rolling Stone and a senior editor for No Depression. He currently teaches journalism at the University of Iowa.