Dwight Yoakam Working On New FOX Comedy Series “Belles & Whistles”
Country legend Dwight Yoakam, along with comedian/musician Jack Black, are joining together to produce (and potentially star in) a new, 30-minute comedy series on FOX called Belles & Whistles. 20th Century Fox TV and Jack Black’s Electric Dynamite are producing the effort according to Deadline, with no public timetable at the moment for when we might expect to see the series hit the small screen.
Details are limited, but Belles & Whistles is said to be a “single camera” comedy with strong musical elements. It will be based in Nashville, with the plot centered around a bored man from Silicon Valley who uproots his family to Nashville to chase his dreams of country music stardom. Alex McAuley from the series Eastbound & Down is said to be on board as a writer and executive producer.
The series is also said to include a strong musical quotient, similar to recent television hits like FOX’s successful Empire, and ABC’s big country music series Nashville, with the obvious difference being the lighthearted approach of Belles & Whistles, and only 30 minutes to fill instead of an hour.
The biggest question remains how much of an acting role Dwight Yoakam and Jack Black will play. Obviously both men have their fair share of acting roles over the years involving music. Jack Black’s School of Rock became a blockbuster, and Dwight Yoakam’s role in Slingblade won Yoakam a nomination from the Screen Actors Guild. Where Black is an actor who became known for his musical efforts, Yoakam was a music guy first who became known for his acting later.
More information as it becomes available, but once again the increasingly-hot backdrop of Nashville will be centerpiece of another television series, and once again music will play a seminal role, potentially opening up new avenues to feature unheard artists.
October 9, 2015 @ 11:11 am
Interesting. I hope there’s a lot of satire. The Nashville scene is begging to be lampooned.
October 9, 2015 @ 12:17 pm
We have absolutely no idea what direction this is going to take, and probably shouldn’t be quick to assign our own desires to something that may take a completely opposite approach. But the amount of comedy waiting to be exposed in how country music works is endless. That’s why we’ve been witnessing the rise of comedians making fun of popular country music, and even things like sports radio and blogs getting in on the action. The entire thing is utterly ridiculous, and is so open to being exploited for humor. It COULD add a voice of dissent through a pretty prominent platform.
It could also be yet another vehicle to get worthy music in front of a bigger audience. “Nashville” has done that for some, though it seems in the last two season’s, they’ve really slowed down highlighting unknown artists like they did previously.
Or it may be a silly show that doesn’t address either of those things. We’ll just have to wait and see.
October 9, 2015 @ 12:32 pm
There’s actually a country duo called Belles & Whistles (former Mulberry Lane singer Jaymie Jones and her teenage daughter Kelli) — but somehow I don’t see them getting involved with a show like this… 😀
bellesandwhistlesmusic.com
October 9, 2015 @ 2:07 pm
To be completely honest I’m more interested in the fact that Jack Black’s a part of this than Dwight Yokum, not that Dwight isn’t talented. He’s done the acting thing before, as far back as Panic Room, but reading this article gave me hopes that we’ll see the High Fidelity side of Jack Black again. Dude’s got talent and a weird combo such as him and Yokum could be something to see. Could.
October 9, 2015 @ 4:23 pm
Here’s hoping this gets Dwight out from Under the Dome…
October 9, 2015 @ 9:09 pm
I forgot about that show…But Dwight is always great to see on film as far as I’m concerned.
October 9, 2015 @ 7:35 pm
I almost wish Carl hadn’t killed Doyle in Slingblade so his band could be the focus of this show.
“What we need is some paying gigs!”
October 11, 2015 @ 1:30 pm
Trigger, ever thought about covering the Country to Country festival?
I’m going on 11th March 2016, (Miranda Lambert, Dwight Yoakam, Ashley Monroe) and I’m just wondering what your take on it would be?
(Also must add that I am very excited because being from the UK, I have never met another Country fan before, and now I will be in a arena full of them)
Also you should check out the UK country scene.
October 11, 2015 @ 1:52 pm
I can barely cover the country festivals that happening Austin, TX these days, let alone around the country and world. There used to be five or six major festivals. Now there’s five or six major festivals per week.
The UK has some cool country bands and I’ve covered a few of them before. My dream is to someday have a country music corespondents on multiple continents. You should check out the good UK-based country blog http://forthecountryrecord.com/