Kentucky born, Ohio raised; Tennessee jilted, California praised. That’s the way the story goes, at least. In 1977 when Dwight Yoakam moved to Nashville to pursue his honky-tonk dreams, Nashville was moving away from the traditional and Countrypolitan sound it had spent the better part of a century developing, and more towards the pop-country that still holds the airwaves hostage. Dwight found that his musical aspirations were better suited for the post-Bakersfield, ”Hillbilly” Los Angeles scene, and that his music was better received by the West coast punks and drunks than it ever was by the Music City establishment. It’s a real stain on Nashville’s history books, because Dwight Yoakam turned out to be one of the best damn artists country music has ever known. You know for certain now that Nashville has recognized its mistake by the sheer number of times ”Guitars, Cadillacs” is picked on lower Broadway each day. It never gets old. It’s practically the city anthem.

Third Man Records, as you know, is thrilled to call Nashville home to its label headquarters, and calling Nashville home means putting out some real country music records. We did it earlier this year from one Margo Price, and we’re doing it again now, just in time for the CMA Music Festival next week. Dwight Yoakam recently took to the studio with our fearless leader Jack White III to record two of the swingin’est tunes we’ve ever had covered in our Blue Series: ”Tomorrow’s Gonna Be Another Day” (Boyce/Venet, popularized by The Monkees) b/w ”High On The Mountain of Love” (Dorman, popularized by Kenny Lynch, then Johnny Rivers, then the Beach Boys, and recorded by many others along the way). Produced by White and backed by the Third Man band of all-stars – Lillie Mae Rische, Daru Jones, Cory Younts, Dominic Davis, Fats Kaplin – these two renditions, into which Dwight’s delivery breathes new life, proves that with the right artist behind the microphone, any song’ll make an even better country song. Now, have you ever heard anything more Nashville than that?