TOMORROW'S SOUNDS TODAY

(Reprise)

For more than 15 years, California-by-way-of-Kentucky songwriter Dwight Yoakam has carried the torch for the kind of rebel country music that's rarely heard along Nashville's Music Row these days: stripped-down and loose-limbed, yelping and rollicking with big Bakers?eld gulps of Buck Owens and Merle Haggard, with maybe a Texas-sized side of Buddy Holly to go with 'em. In other words, Yoakam likes his heartbreak served up the old-fashioned way, with guitar, voice, ?ddle, and a whole lotta nights spent crying at the jukebox -- the way heartbreak's supposed to be.

Given his refusal to kowtow to the high-gloss standards of contempo country, it makes sense that the guy's picked a de?ant, if optimistic, title for his 15th long-player. In addition to his own crack backing band, Sounds has Owens -- lured out of self-imposed retirement by Yoakam for the second time -- dueting with Dwight on three tracks (including the jointly penned "The Sad Side of Town" and Owens's own "I Was There"), as well as cameos by Byrds/Flying Burrito Brothers alum Chris Hillman on mandolin and Flaco Jiménez on accordion. But the real star here is Yoakam, his songs, and his traditonalist ideals. Sounds is another collection of top-shelf originals that kiss country's close cousins -- Crickets-style rockabilly ("Dreams of Clay"), weeping waltzes ("Time Spent Missing You") -- but remain faithful to the music's roots. Only on his mild cover of Cheap Trick's "I Want You To Want Me," which saps the song of the original's libidinous urgency, does Yoakam stumble in his cowboy boots.

-- Jonathan Perry