Like his idols Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, and Hank Williams, Yoakam never played by Nashvilles rules consequently, he never dominated the charts like his contemporary Randy Travis. His middle-period-to-later records saw him branching out to different styles, covering rock & roll, punk, 1960s, blues-based "boogie" like ZZ Top, and writing more adventurous songs like "A Thousand Miles From Nowhere". With his stripped-down approach to traditional honky tonk and Bakersfield country, Dwight Yoakam helped return country music to its roots in the late 80s. Dwight David Yoakam (born October 23, 1956) is an American singer-songwriter, musician and actor, known for his pioneering-style of country music.His popularity starting in the mid-1980s, Yoakam has recorded more than twenty albums and compilations, charted more than thirty singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, and sold more than 25 million records. To see Dwight Yoakam also do the song as an Elvis tribute, click here. To see the Queen video of Crazy Little Thing Called Love, click here. To read Tim’s answer and those of others in their entirety, click here. He has never been associated only with country music on many early tours, he played with hardcore punk bands like Hüsker Dü, and played many shows around Los Angeles with roots/punk/rock & roll acts. Once Freddie put it on, his voice got deeper, making him sound a little more Elvis-like.
He recorded a cover of The Clash's "Train in Vain" in 1997, a cover of the Grateful Dead song "Truckin'", as well as Cheap Trick's "I Want You to Want Me". Time dubbed him "A Renaissance Man" and Vanity Fair declared that "Yoakam strides the divide between rock's lust and country's lament." Along with his bluegrass and honky-tonk roots, he has written or covered many Elvis Presley-style rockabilly songs, including his covers of Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" in 1999 and Presley's "Suspicious Minds" in 1992. Chris Isaak called him as good a songwriter as ever put a pen to paper. Johnny Cash once cited Yoakam as his favorite country singer.