She Was the First to Believe in Him. Always.
There was one woman who always believed in Dwight Yoakam—even when no one else did: his mother, Ruth Ann Yoakam.
Growing up in Ohio, Dwight was the odd one out. He wore tight cowboy jeans to school and adored old honky-tonk songs when everyone else listened to pop. Teachers didn’t get him. Classmates mocked him. But his mom? She never blinked.
She drove him to music lessons, sat quietly in the hallway, and clapped softly after every practice. When he wanted to drop out of college and move to Nashville, she didn’t say no. She simply said, “If you believe in it, then I do too.”
Years later, even after becoming a country icon, Dwight kept a photo of him and his mother from one of his first performances in his wallet—for over 30 years.
He once said:
“All my life, I’ve been chasing that one feeling—that look in my mom’s eyes when I sang on stage for the first time.”
She might not be famous. But no one ever knew him better. And no one believed in him earlier.