From his formative years playing pure, hardcore honky-tonk for mid-'80s Los Angeles punk rockers through his subsequent surge to the top of the country charts, Dwight Yoakam has enjoyed a singular career. An electrifying live performer, superb writer, and virtuosic vocalist, he has successfully bridged two musical worlds that usually have little use for each other—commercial country and its alternative/Americana/roots-rocking counterpart. Defying the label "too country for rock, too rock for country," Yoakam has triumphed while many of his peers have had to settle for cult acceptance. Four decades into his career, he has sold more than 25 million records and continues to tour regularly, with an extremely loyal fan base. 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, McLeese shows how he has combined rock and roll, rockabilly, country, blues, and gospel into a seamless whole. In particular, McLeese 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.

Dwight Yoakam: A Thousand Miles from Nowhere (American Music Series)

Biographies & Memoirs

McLeese, Don

Arts & Literature

University of Texas Press

When the Motor City 5 stormed the stage, the band combined the kinetic flash of James Brown on acid with the raw musical dynamics of the Who gone berserk. It's a unique band that can land itself on the cover of Rolling Stone a month before the release of its debut album and then be booted from its record contract just a few months later. Rock had never before seen the likes of the MC5 and never will again. 
Many of us who were floored by the 5 in concert were convinced that this was the most transcendently pulverizing rock we would ever experience, while many more who heard or read about the band dismissed the 5 as a caricature, a fraud, White Panther bozos play-acting at revolution. There was always plenty of humor to the 5-visionary knuckleheads-though the question was whether they were in on the joke. Frequently ridiculed during their short career, they've since been hailed as a primal influence on everything from punk to metal to Rage Against the Machine to the Detroit populist resurgence of the White Stripes, Kid Rock and Eminem.

The MC5's Kick Out the Jams (33 1/3)

Arts & Photography

Music

Continuum

Discover the people who, in their daily lives, considered lives beyond their own to make the world a better place, particularly for the poor, oppressed, and underrecognized.

Martin Luther King, Jr (Equal Rights Leaders)

Children's Books

Biographies

Rourke Pub Group

Rosa Parks (Equal Rights Leaders)

These low-level biographies cover the interesting and exciting lives of some of America's most beloved legends. Discover their accomplishments and their impact on other lives.

Amelia Earhart (American Legends)

These low-level biographies cover the interesting and exciting lives of some of America's most beloved legends. Discover their accomplishments and their impact on other lives.

Helen Keller (American Legends)

Thurgood Marshall (American Legends)

MARSHALL, THURGOOD

A simple biography of one of the best known figures in the history of baseball, home-run hitter Babe Ruth.

Babe Ruth (American Legends Series)

Jim Thorpe (American Legends)

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by McLeese, Don. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by McLeese, Don

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by McLeese, Don. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Dwight Yoakam: A Thousand Miles from Nowhere (American Music Series)

Dwight Yoakam: A Thousand Miles from Nowhere (American Music Series)

The MC5's Kick Out the Jams (33 1/3)

Martin Luther King, Jr (Equal Rights Leaders)

Rosa Parks (Equal Rights Leaders)

Amelia Earhart (American Legends)

Helen Keller (American Legends)

Thurgood Marshall (American Legends)

Babe Ruth (American Legends Series)

Jim Thorpe (American Legends)