Awesome 1999 Dwight Yoakam Interview Unearthed From the Archives

While working at KHEY in El Paso almost twenty years ago, I had the opportunity to talk to country legend Dwight Yoakam. And now as we're getting ready for his Lubbock concert, I found this old picture and would love to share some memories.

When I talked with Dwight in 1999, he was fighting a cold. He said the worst thing a singer can do for his voice is lemon and herbal tea.

He was in the middle of filming a movie you may remember: David Fincher's Panic Room, starring Jodie Foster, Kristen Stewart, Forest Whitaker and Jared Leto.

South of Heaven, West of Hell was getting ready to open that December 15th. He described it as a weird gothic western. He co-wrote and directed and was one of the principle characters. Vince Vaughn played his character's nemesis, and Bridget Fonda and Peter Fonda were both also in the film.

"It was a great cast. It's an ensemble piece...it was truly a labor of love and I'm very proud of the film...it's a period piece. It's shot in Arizona....set in 1907, 1908," Yoakam told me.

He shared that his single "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" came out of an advertising campaign and he called it Freddy Murphy's tribute to rockabilly. He said he always got a great response when he played it out on tour.

I asked him what he hoped his fans got out of his music. "Pleasure...and beyond that, a sense of community with each other," he said.

He shared one of his fondest Christmas memories with me, too:

"I got a little transistor radio..when I was in junior high..it was one of my gifts..I remember it was cold, we'd moved to Ohio...I remember laying awake with the ear piece, a transistor radio ear piece in my ear, listening to the theme song from Midnight Cowboy, and it's a really iconic guitar piece, it's an instrumental, and..(about his brand new transistor radio) you could smell kind of when they heated up.. I haven't thought about that in years,...it was cold, it was snowing and I was listening to , interestingly enough a theme from a film that I found really intoxicating that song, the theme from Midnight Cowboy."

He then hummed a few bars from it for me.

Such a tremendous interview; I cherish the memory. I'm really looking forward to hopefully catching up with him for an updated interview when he plays live in Lubbock in March.

Special thanks to KHEY for giving us permission to upload this interview.