Entertainment icon Dwight Yoakam is set to receive the prestigious President’s Award at the 67^th annual BMI Country Awards on November 12 at BMI’s Nashville office. BMI President and CEO Mike O’Neill will host the ceremony alongside Vice President Jody Williams. The BMI President’s Award celebrates songwriters for their outstanding and influential work in the entertainment industry. Past recipients of this honor include Kenny Chesney, Willie Nelson, Brooks & Dunn, P!nk, Adam Levine and more of music’s biggest names.

Yoakam is also set to be inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame at the 49^th Anniversary induction gala, October 14 at Nashville’s Music City Center; more info HERE. Yoakam joins an elite list of legends who have previously been inducted including Willie Nelson, Hank Williams, Dolly Parton, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash and more of country music’s biggest stars.

Yoakam launched his very own SiriusXM channel, Dwight Yoakam & The Bakersfield Beat, in April 2018. The channel is entirely curated by Yoakam and features music from the icon’s extensive career, as well as celebrates the Bakersfield sound and California Country. His weekly show, “Greater Bakersfield,” features Yoakam talking about California Country music and jamming with such esteemed guests as Bob Weir, Post Malone, Beck, Emmylou Harris, Jakob Dylan, Bob Lefsetz and more; more info HERE.

This December, Yoakam will make his Wynn Las Vegas debut with a six-night residency, An Evening with Dwight Yoakam & The Bakersfield Beat, at the Encore Theater. Yoakam will perform a variety of the music that influenced and created the “Bakersfield” and “California Country-Rock” genres of country music from their early beginnings to their commercial zenith, in addition to his own original music that was shaped and influenced by this legacy. The unique showcase will reflect the concepts that created his self-curated SiriusXM channel, Dwight Yoakam & The Bakersfield Beat. More info and tickets can be found HERE.

“…one of the freshest, most cutting-edge artists in country music.”

 
“He inhabits an era and geography all his own, a remembered 1960s California where
Buck Owens and the Byrds somehow reigned together in harmony.”

“With three decades of music under his buckled belt, Dwight Yoakam has
cemented his status as a country icon…”

Dwight Yoakam has sold over 25 million albums worldwide, with five reaching the #1 spot on Billboard. He is a 21-time nominated, multiple GRAMMY Award winner. He has 12 gold albums and 9 platinum or multi-platinum albums and is also the recipient of the Artist of the Year award from the Americana Music Association. He has collaborated with everyone from Beck to Kid Rock, ZZ Top, Hunter S. Thompson and Jack White. He has toured with the likes of Buck Owens, Johnny Cash and Hüsker Dü. Yoakam’s latest album, Swimmin’ Pools, Movie Stars…, was released in 2016. Rolling Stone Country raves, “Yoakam sounds right at home on these new versions,” while NPR Music praises, “You can hear Yoakam making masterful choices on every phrase.”

In addition to his musical career, Yoakam has also appeared in over 40 feature films, including Sling Blade, Panic Room, Steven Soderbergh’s Logan Lucky with Channing Tatum and Daniel Craig, as well as the Amazon series Goliath. Over the course of his storied acting career he has worked with the likes of Jodie Foster, Tommy Lee Jones, Jared Leto, Matthew McConaughey and more.

In 1977, Yoakam left Kentucky for Nashville to embark on a music career but found that the Music City was moving away from traditional country roots to more pop-country. He found himself better suited to the post-Bakersfield movement and became one of the founding fathers of the “L.A. Cowpunk Scene” influenced by second-wave rockabilly and punk alongside X, Los Lobos, The Knitters, Rank & File and The Blasters.