Dwight Yoakam, music’s biggest fan, sings the praises of his influences on ‘Brighter Days’

Through the window of an upper floor office in West Hollywood, the sky changed from cyan to navy and then indigo blue. Yoakam stretched his arm toward me and played “Set You Free This Time,” the third song on the Byrds’ 1965 album “Turn! “Zach Bryan in a little weird way sounds a bit like Post when he’s unencumbered by a lot of production.” Dwight Yoakam. Steele said the album has “all these threads of influence that only Dwight knows because he’s a historian.” The Byrds, the Bakersfield sound and California country and country-rock traditions are what lured Yoakam to Los Angeles in the late 1970s as the so-called urban cowboy movement took hold in Nashville. Although much of Yoakam’s most celebrated work has centered on classic country themes such as hardship, heartache, loneliness and drifting, “Brighter Days” demonstrates considerable joy.