One of his first breakthrough records was a song done by Johnny Horton called 'Honky Tonk Man', another stand out cover track was his reworking of Elvis Presley's 'Suspicious Minds' done with Pete Anderson for the 1992 Honeymoon In Vegas soundtrack. Dwight has Yoakam'd out other unlikely songs by not exclusively country related groups like Grateful Dead, The Kinks, The Clash and Cheap Trick'sI Want You To Want Me.
Other popular covers by Yoakam include Queen's 'Crazy Little Thing Called Love' in 1999, and ZZ Top's I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide in 2003. Starting out in the early 80's in L.A Yoakam's group played with 'roots' acts like The Blasters, eventually covering their song 'Long White Cadillac'. His distinctive twang[sound has been linked with production & arranging collaborator Pete Anderson who has helmed the boards for the most commercially successful period of Yoakam's career. Active as a recording artist since the early 1980s, Yoakam has appeared in films, on over thirty charting singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, and a plethora of albums and compilations selling well in excess of 20 million units worldwide. Purveyor of the bakersfield sound, country singer-songwriter Dwight Yoakam grew up in Columbus, Ohio before first heading to Nashville and eventually west to Los Angeles, and bought a place in Bakersfield, CA near his idol & mentor Buck Owens.