 |  | The Only Living Country Legend |  |
Dwight Yoakam is the only real country artist out there. The rest are imitators, but Yoakam delivers the real thing. Hillbilly Deluxe is one of the best country albums ever made. It is just a shame that he had to put up with the imitators he competed with when this album was originally released. HB is a five star masterpiece. If you never buy a country album, buy this one.
March 27, 2008This is Dwight's sophomore release, and it sounds like he's been doing it for years! A great follow-up to "Guitars, Cadillacs....." This one has a little more "rockabilly" than his first album, but is often considered by many, to be his best work. I'll disagree with that and say "Tomorrow's Sound Today" and "This Time" were far better, but this one still deserves an A+. This album includes a cover of the great Stonewall Jackson's "Smoke Along the Tracks", as well as a cover of Lefty's "Always Late..."; both numbers are superb covers and Dwight does justice to both. Persoanlly, I say the best tracks are "1,000 Miles" and "This Drinkin' Will Kill Me". This is one any true country music fan must own. A+
December 28, 2005| | | Hillbilly Deluxe, Dwight Yoakam | |
Wonderful CD. I was so glad to find it. I have worn out a cassette of the same title and have been unable to find this anywhere. Some songs on here that are not on his other CD's. Thanks, Amazon!
July 20, 2005| | | Brilliant rocking country album | |
This was Dwight's second album (after Guitars Cadillacs). It contains seven original songs, all written by Dwight, and three covers. The overall feel of the album is upbeat, yet the lyrics are generally sadder than the rockabilly-styled musical backing would suggest. Most of the songs here are up-tempo or mid-tempo. The only ballads are Please please baby, Johnson's love and 1,000 miles. It occurs to me that 1,000 is a number that Dwight seems to find significant because he later recorded a song titled A thousand miles from nowhere as well as including the number in the title of one of his compilations.
The album yielded four major country hits - Little sister (a cover of the Elvis Presley classic from the early sixties), Always late with your kisses (a cover of a Lefty Frizzell country hit from the fifties), Please please baby (one of only two ballads on this album - the other being Johnson's love) and Little ways. The third cover here, Smoke along the track, is a train song that was originally recorded by Stonewall Jackson in the fifties.
This is, as I would expect, a high quality album from Dwight. By his own very high standards, it is not his strongest album but if you're serious about Dwight's music, this is essential. If you only want one or two of Dwight's albums, go for one or both of the compilations, Just lookin' for a hit and Last chance for 1,000 years. April 9, 2004
 | | Only a slight letdown from first album. | |
There's just no getting around it (for me anyway): this album simply does not have the electricity of *Guitars, Cadillacs, etc.*, the overall range of *If There Was a Way*, or the depth of the great *This Time*. Having said that, what's here is still very good and certainly worth having in your collection.
Both "Little Ways" and "Smoke along the Track" are good but are pretty much standard country fare. The same is true of "Always Late with Your Kisses", "Throughout All Time", and "This Drinkin' Will Kill Me". They're all good songs but there's nothing extra special about them. However, the remake of the Elvis standard "Little Sister" is reminiscent of the remake of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" from the first album. Both recall the old adage that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
The real strengths of the album lie in "Johnson's Love", a great ballad, "Please, Please Baby", an electric country-rocker, "Readin', Rightin', Rt. 23", and the best of the bunch, "1,000 Miles", not to be confused with "A Thousand Miles from Nowhere" from the *This Time* album. Enjoy. July 23, 2003
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