Dwight Yoakam – Reprise Please Baby: The Warner Bros. Years (4-CD box)

I gotta hand it to Dwight Yoakam, even if I’m turned off sometimes by what I see as his self-defeating posturing and pretensions (and relax, people, I already know mine’s a minority position). I can’t think of too many artists in any genre who could compile a four-CD box set this rich in just two decades.

So many good points jump out of the speakers here. There’s the thick, cutting voice and deft, hard-edged phrasing, seemingly always on the verge of a yodel without ever quite breaking into one (though he can’t always bring enough color to the more bluegrassy stuff). There’s the amazing diversity of his material, most of which he writes himself: Originals such as “Buenas Noches From A Lonely Room (She Wore Red Dresses)” simply don’t come along that often, and melodies like “It Won’t Hurt” and “Little Ways” just won’t quit.

While some of the rock adaptations from his “covers” album fail to translate, Yoakam is equally at home with all forms of country from the second half of the 20th century, not just the neo-Bakersfield style associated with him. He swings effortlessly on “Honky Tonk Man” or his early manifesto “Guitars, Cadillacs”, makes with the rockabilly moves on “Little Sister” and “Only Want You More”, and connects with country’s folk roots on “Miner’s Prayer”. He transforms country into rock (the previously unreleased “Golden Ring”, with Kelly Willis) and rock into country (“Baby Don’t Go”, with Sheryl Crow) without compromising either; and efforts like “Free To Go” and “You’re The One” simply chug or glide away from such distinctions and render them moot.

With his collaboration with Flaco Jimenez on Warren Zevon’s “Carmelita”, which nobody else who appeals to country radio could get away with, it’s clear that the guy knows the full breadth of his audience like few other artists. And finally, let’s hear it for Pete Anderson, not just as a producer — solo acoustic tracks such as “Bury Me” confirm just how badly Yoakam needs him, despite the expansive voice — but as a guitarist who proves repeatedly that one solo is worth a thousand lyrics.

I’m particularly a fan of the earliest sides and the This Time era (especially the devastating quartet of “A Thousand Miles From Nowhere”, “Try Not To Look So Pretty”, “Pocket Of A Clown” and “Home for Sale”). Most of disc four, featuring previously unissued efforts, serves primarily as padding to stretch out the box; the live tracks are muffled and/or dull (especially the Grateful Dead tribute “Truckin'”), while the 1981 demos that precede his recording career add little or nothing to the versions of these songs that we already know.

And I’m starting to detect a decline with the more recent material, including the new single “Sittin’ Pretty”, which he didn’t write, and which sounds to me less like a Yoakam song than like a Yoakam-wannabe song. You may well differ with such reservations, but that’s what makes a horse race. As a good Kentucky boy, Dwight Yoakam knows a thing or two about horse races.