Dwight Yoakam – Population: Me

Following an artist for any length of time involves putting up with some self-indulgence, since they’ve got to keep themselves interested enough to keep going. With rock bands, that might be in-concert drum solos or misguided solo projects. Jazz musicians invariably feel compelled to dabble in classical at some point. And Dwight Yoakam always seems to have at least one moment per album where he does something so flaky and ill-advised, you can’t help cringing.

Thus we have the title track to Population: Me, Yoakam’s first indie-label album after a sixteen-year run on Warner/Reprise, in which he tries on the Squirrel Nut Zippers for size. Over a minor-key dobro/banjo/trumpet vamp, Yoakam comes on like a drawling carney auditioning for a traveling vaudeville troupe. Interesting idea, but it’s jive, man, just jive.

But Yoakam’s saving grace is that he just about always makes it worth your while to stick around. You put up with his goofier tangents because occasionally they do work — this album’s unlikely cover of the obscure Burt Bacharach/Hal David song “Trains And Boats And Planes”, a moderate 1965 hit for Billy J. Kramer & the Dakotas, being a delightful case in point. But mostly, you wait Yoakam out to get to the long stretches where he gets back to doing what he does so well.

Like the opening track here, Mike Stinson’s “The Late Great Golden State”. Yoakam declares he “ain’t old, just out of date” in front of a choir of cool west coast harmony vocalists, equating crumbling mountains and apocalyptic wildfire with “the last cowboy band [leaving] the stage.” Darned if he doesn’t convince you they’re of equal import, too.

Close to two decades into a career that has transformed him into a single-name character right behind Waylon, Willie and Merle, Dwight is still mighty convincing when he sticks to his strengths. On Population: Me — an old-school country album right down to its short length, ten tracks in 32 minutes — that means romantic trauma and lots of it, Bakersfield-style. Pete Anderson’s lead guitar cuts, the pedal steel whines, Yoakam sneers, and all is right with the world.

He can still pull off Elvis-like swagger better than just about anyone (“I’d Avoid Me, Too”), and still has an affinity for bad puns (“Fair To Midland”). Sure, it’s ground he has covered before. But as his former Warners labelmate Prince once put it, there is joy in repetition.