tavis: good evening. smiley. >> tonight, a conversation with dwight yoakam. he has just released a new collection of songs called "3 pears." he is also being honored this month at the annual academy. we're glad you have joined us. >> there is a saying that dr. king had that said there is always the right time to do the right thing. i try to live my life every day by doing the right thing. we know that we are only halfway to completely eliminating hunger and we have work to do. walmart committed $2 billion to fighting hunger in the u.s. as we work together, we can stamp hunger out.

>> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. tavis: please welcome dwight yoakam back to this program. he is out with his first studio album in seven years. he is also being honored this month with a special award by the academy of country music. some of them -- some of the making of the new disc, "3 pears." ♪

♪ ♪ tavis: good to have you back on the program. i did not realize that you have lived in los angeles for 30 years. >> when i got lost trying to get to your studio, i should have known better. i drove a couple of different jobs. i drove for another company that was based near the studio.

transporting checks at night. everybody has a job. that was my job. to make a living with a guitar for a lot longer. i drove all over l.a., that was my life for a number of years. i'm one point, i was born in kentucky, raised in ohio, but i grew up in california. i felt like i became an adult here. i landed here. i dropped out of ohio state. we did beat you in football. they stole that coach from ohio state.

the futures would, over, and a decent -- the hoosiers would come over and a decent team went out the window. i came to the west coast in 1977. there was a great feeling of the remnants of the country rock scene and the eagles were at the apex of their career. linda ronstadt was also. i was drawn by those beacons. it became home. l.a. is infectious. tavis: why not nashville? >> i got there, even to this day, in retrospect, i understand.

it is a different business. the business there is songwriting. the way in the door it is songwriting. ironically, at because i've read most of my career, -- written most of my career, but i was approaching it from a performance standpoint. i needed to get in and night clubs and present the material that way. there is more opportunity now to perform and to make inroads that way. but it was not that way in the 1970's. it was a company town that was in the business of songwriting. you had to get a job as a staff songwriter. i should have been knocking on the doors of publishing companies. it would not given me the life that i had had.

ice started playing the club's -- i started playing the clubs from the valley. it was called the cal-punk kind of movement. that allowed me the opportunity to go on this side of the hill. to play club lingerie. tavis: in a place like l.a., who sells this in l.a.? and >> 517 . you do not have to. it was a boot jean, slim cut.

it goes way back to the 1960's and 1970's. all of the rodeo guys. wrangler was a louis certification -- looser fit. when i was a kid, the champion cowboys in the 1960's, you would not catch those guys not wearing levi's. they would go really long. these are off the rack. the first pair i bought were here in l.a.. in the valley, there are a couple places. king's western wear was a

mainstay in the valley. they outfitted a lot of -- cowboy culture in l.a. goes back to the movies. the singing cowboys. the western heritage museum is around the street. there was a legacy of it here. i went into his shop. i warrant for 29 years. i got it in 1979. >> that is a good hat. >> i caught it on the top of my car one day. this was called a rca block. i said, i want one of those bull rider block.

they would yank it on the front and back to make sure it stayed on. the cowboy hats are gone. ok. i stand corrected. that was in 1979. i went back to him and i could not afford his clothes. i went back to him in 1985. i had signed with warner brothers and i had a little chat. i said i want to do some jackets for the band.

he was a western tailor. he did the first jumpsuit. he did all the cowboy movies staff. -- stuff. i want to do these jackets, but i do not know how much. i do not have a lot of money. he said, money is no object. i said, i am in trouble. money is no object. i said, ok. that is the record business. tavis: in l.a., how did you go about creating your own sound? >> pete anderson, who was my first producer, being born in

appalachia in southeast kentucky, mountain music was what bust in my dna. -- was what was in my dna. out fliers was really -- gave me great insight into my own culture. when he talks about the feuds in kentucky, they started to do research in the university of michigan with a double blind psychology department test. they were setting up an incident in a hallway. all the southern guys took offense in a weird way.

these were not even guys that lived there. generations removed. it made sense. the observation and analysis, it is there. it is in the dna. we do not escape our great-great grandparents. we have that in ice. that music was there. we moved to ohio. this record comes full circle in my life in that it is all the stuff i heard in the car radio in columbus, ohio. we moved out of kentucky, it is only 90 miles. the ohio valley, there is another great book called "the united states of appalachia." it is an analysis of our culture.

giving us the culture that we all have in the historic perspective on that. that was there. it was clearly in me and was never going to leave. when i came to california, there was an affinity i had to two or three generations earlier, the steinbeck, to california, they were ostracized. buck owens used to have a chip on his shoulder. after he died, i read something. what he told me one time was about the shame he felt about thatfamily being so pouor they had one toothbrush.

i swore i would never be the sport ever again in my life. -- be this poor ever again in my life. we are shaped by all of those disparate elements in our life. i started listening, the palomino was a famous nightclub. a world-famous country nightclub that started in the early 1950's. everybody stops there and played. the owner told me one night, i was really proud for him that i was able to pull in to that night club. down the block, they were lined up. we were in his office and he had a safe open.

he watched me over the last two years place this club and come from obscurity and start to become somebody who was knocking on the door of being known and he said, i've been watching you. the last person i did this, i had to go see him at the hollywood bowl. i said, wow. he said, linda ronstadt. she was here. the last show she played here, you could not dead end. the lost time i saw her, -- you could not get to an end. -- get in. the next shote he came to see me at was the universal amphitheater. he passed away a couple of months after. anyway, i am rambling. tavis: i am loving it. i want to ask about the record

in a second. you mentioned earlier that he dropped out of the ohio state. that did not curb your appetite for reading. he wore a voracious reader. >> i read more after i dropped out of college. although, university studies, i was so distracted and pulled by my heart to do what i wanted to pursue. i think back and i regretted many times that i did not finish academic studying. i love knowledge. i think we come to a greater understanding of the world we live then and ourselves through reading. i hope books to not go the way

of albums and cds. there have been studies -- i keep talking to the rest of the crew. i keep looking are pointing to people in the shadows. my parents were not affluent people. they did not come from the extremities of education. my mother had a high-school diploma. i wish she had come out of the hills i've been able to go to college. she would of made a wonderful teacher. sure is a stickler for grammar. -- she was a stickler for

grammar. we were always pushed to speak correctly, if and when possible. i have strayed from not a lot. -- from that a lot. we were raised in a religious environment. i grew up reading. she said she felt badly that she did not encourage me. i was raised in the church of christ, which is the church that founded pepperdine university. i had a desire to go there. i was the first kid in the family. the know what, do not worry about what happens.

what she gave me in my cultural past and what she gave me in the home environment and how we were raised, we did not read the classics. we were not taught the classics. but i was taught to read the king james version of the bible. that is an interesting read. not just because of the theology of it. but because of the sentenced, the language. james was the monarch who followed elisabeth. elizabethan english gave us shakespeare. king james gave us the new testament. it is an interesting -- i am half literate. tavis: you are being modest. why is this predict called --

project called "3 pears'? s. p-a-i-r- it was a tongue-in-cheek reference to the moment that gave me the idea for the song, watching the george harrison documentary. i was watching that in the kitchen one night after i had begun recording the album. i was listening to him tell a story about he and john. people thought we wrote lyrics that were drug induced. we had very little dalliance with drugs. i guess they smoked pot, he

said. they dabbled a little bit with some mind opening guru with taking acid. one night, we had taken lsd and we did not have a bad trip. some months lead us acid in a nightclub in london. we did not free doubt. but we did not know where we were -- we did not freaked out. but we did not know where we were for a day and a half. they cut to a piece of footage of john, 1966, later on, he had a shot of him with three pairs of sunglasses on. he had three pair of sunglasses on, stacked on each other at

once. just being silly. i was watching and thinking, what a sad loss to all of us. john lennon, you know, 40 years old. i remember when he died, i was working at a cowboy bar out in the valley. he was really broken up. i was probably 26 or 27. i thought, wow. that night in the kitchen, from the other vantage point. he was so young.

i looked up and he was laughing and i thought, three pairs of glasses. i got up and started writing what became the title track. pears was really a tongue-in- cheek reference. tavis: it never ceases to amaze me. where the inspiration for certain songs comes from. it is amazing. >> a very non sequitur. songs are their own entity. i tried to listen to hear them over my shoulder somewhere. the song is talking to me. tavis: a lot of good stuff on this project, first time in seven years. don't stay gone so long.

i was in a different building. the new project by dwight yoakam. i have enjoyed this and i've learned so much about you and your life. thank you for coming 9. >> -- thank you for coming on. you can come back anytime. until next time, keep the faith. >> ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for actor tony danza. >> there is a saying that dr. king had that said there is always the right time to do the right thing. i try to live my life every day by doing the right thing. we know that we are only halfway to completely eliminating hunger and we have work to do.

walmart committed $2 billion to fighting hunger in the u.s. as we work together, we can stamp hunger out. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> be more. >> be more. pbs. pbs.