Dwight Yoakam to bring his unique brand of honky-tonk to The Palace

Dwight Yoakam, who is known for creating his own brand of updated honky-tonk, will make a tour stop 7 p.m. July 23 at The Palace Theatre in Greensburg.
Over 30 years ago, Yoakam left his Ohio home and decided to head west to see if he could start a music career.
But, because his country sound was different than the urban cowboy/pop country that was popular on the airwaves, he would often perform with bands that had more of a rock or even punk leaning.
Yoakam would later go on to pen several top ten hits including “Please, Please Baby,” “Always Late with Your Kisses,” “Long White Cadillac” and more.
Music has not been his only claim to fame.
Yoakam, who was known for his acting skills in high school, has also been a part of several films including “Panic Room,” “90 Minutes in Heaven,” “Under the Dome,” “Crank” and more.
Most recently, he released his latest album, “Swimmin’ Pools, Movie Stars,” his first-ever bluegrass album, that features his own songs reimagined with a bluegrass twist.
” Yoakam’s new album also arrives on the 30th anniversary of his first (‘Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc.’), which provides a nice bit of symmetry. Rather than rambling through bluegrass standards, he revisits songs from his own catalog, some of them fairly deep cuts handpicked by Nashville’s Gary Paczosa and Jon Randall, the contemporary bluegrass studio pros with whom Yoakam co-produced it. The only outlier? An earnest, and apparently unplanned, cover of Prince’s iconic ‘Purple Rain,'” wrote Jewly Hight in her review of the new album for NPR Music. ” Yoakam made a deliberate choice to amplify his expression in this unamplified setting, because in his memory, bluegrass has always rocked. His version does, too.”
Yoakam’s tour is currently underway and will continue through December as it cross-crosses the country.
According to a concert review by Robert Ker for the Portland Press Herald, Yoakam played a good mixture of covers and originals throughout the performance.
“With covers including that one, the Bakersfield mini-set, and more by Elvis Presley and Lefty Frizzell (plus a snippet of the Rolling Stones’ ‘Let’s Spend the Night Together’ dropped in his own ‘Turn It On, Turn It Up, Turn Me Loose’), Yoakam honored his influences and inspirations in the first half of the set, almost like a magician telling how he’s going to do the trick,” he wrote. “In the set’s second half, composed heavily of his original songs with an emphasis on late 1980s and early-90s material, he performed the trick. This was the portion that the crowd came to see, and they responded enthusiastically, often singing along as he stormed through songs like ‘This Time,’ ‘Little Ways’ and ‘Guitars, Cadillacs.”
Tickets for The Palace performance are priced at $48, $58, $68, $78 and $88 and can be purchased online at thepalacetheatre.org or by calling the box office at 724-836-8000.