Dwight Yoakam to Headline Charity Concert in Los Angeles for Children’s Hospital

Country music superstar Dwight Yoakam will headline the inaugural Dwight Yoakam & Friends: Rockin’ for the Kids at The Roxy, taking place during GRAMMY week in Los Angeles. The one-night-only charity concert will be held Wednesday, January 28, at the Roxy Theatre and will benefit Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA).

Tickets are available Wednesday, January 14 at 10 a.m. PT here. A limited number of sponsor and VIP tickets are available by contacting Matt Semler at msemler@chla.usc.edu.

Presented by Dwight Yoakam alongside Billy Bob Thornton and McG, the evening will feature a full performance by Dwight Yoakam and his band, with special guest appearances by Charley Crockett, Marcus King, Lukas Nelson, and additional artists to be announced. Renowned video director and producer McG will emcee the event. 

The roots of Rockin’ for the Kids trace back to a deeply personal experience for Yoakam and his wife, Emily. A few years ago, at the height of COVID, when their son was still an infant, the new parents found themselves at Children’s Hospital with Dr. Mark Krieger, SVP and Surgeon-in-Chief at CHLA, for what gratefully turned out to be nothing of any further concern. Coincidentally, in the same time frame, Yoakam had just participated in a live-stream benefit for the Ronald McDonald House located across the street from CHLA. Dr. Krieger was aware of the connection and he thanked Yoakam for giving his support.

While waiting in those corridors of CHLA, Dwight and Emily witnessed hundreds of children moving through various stages of recovery and treatment, an experience that left a lasting impression. In their subsequent discussions with Dr. Krieger, Emily mentioned her profound experience working as a volunteer at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital in Nashville some years earlier. She posed the simple question: how could they give back to the hospital that cares for so many children and their families every day?

That conversation planted the seed for what would now become an ongoing philanthropic effort to help raise funds and awareness to CHLA’s work by bringing artists together to make a tangible impact.

In September 2024, when Yoakam was asked to perform a charity concert at the Lido Theatre in Newport Beach, owned by McG, Dwight suggested that CHLA and Children’s Hospital Orange County be the beneficiaries of the night’s fundraising. At that event, Yoakam and Dr. Krieger reconnected and discussed creating a yearly benefit during GRAMMY week and Rockin’ for the Kids was born.

“When you walk the halls of a children’s hospital, it changes you. It puts all of life in a very graphic perspective,” said Dwight Yoakam. “As Emily and I were there with our own child, we saw so many families facing battles no one hopes to ever have to endure. And while we were fortunate to not face those challenges, that experience never left us. Rockin’ for the Kids is our way of saying thank you to Dr. Krieger and the entire staff at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, on behalf of every family who puts their trust in them every single day.”

“On behalf of everyone at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, we are thrilled to be partnering with Mr. Yoakam and his wife on what is sure to be a truly special evening,” says Mark D. Krieger, MD, the hospital’s Surgeon-in-Chief and the Billy and Audrey L. Wilder Chair in Neurosurgery. “We are grateful to Dwight and Emily for their passion and vision in bringing this night to life.”

ABOUT DWIGHT YOAKAM

With more than 25 million albums sold worldwide, Dwight Yoakam is a 21-time GRAMMY nominee and multiple GRAMMY Award winner. His catalog includes 12 gold albums and 9 platinum or multi-platinum releases, with five reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Country Albums chart and 14 placing in the Top 10. Nearly 40 of his singles have charted on Billboard, including 14 Top 10 hits.

He is a recipient of the Americana Music Association’s Artist of the Year Award and BMI Country Music’s President’s Award, and in 2019 was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Yoakam’s most recent release, Brighter Days (Via Records/Thirty Tigers), arrived in November 2024 and marked his first album of new material in nine years.

Written and recorded over a multi-year period, the collection includes twelve original songs written or co-written by Yoakam, along with covers of “Keep On the Sunny Side,” “Bound Away,” and Chris Hillman’s “Time Between."

A dedicated steward of musical heritage, Yoakam launched his SiriusXM channel, Dwight Yoakam and The Bakersfield Beat: Where Country Went Mod, in 2018. The channel celebrates the Bakersfield sound and its lasting influence, featuring music, interviews, archival recordings, and guest appearances from artists such as Post Malone, Lukas Nelson, Beck, Chris Hillman, Jakob Dylan, and Jackie DeShannon.