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The Highwaymen | |
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Background information | |
Also known as | Nelson, Jennings, Cash, Kristofferson |
Origin | United States |
Genres | |
Years active | 1985–1995 |
Labels | |
Past members |
The Highwaymen were an American country music supergroup, composed of four of country music's biggest artists who pioneered the outlaw country subgenre: Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson. Between 1985 and 1995, the group recorded three major label albums as The Highwaymen: two on Columbia Records and one for Liberty Records. Their Columbia works produced three chart singles, including the number one "Highwayman" in 1985.
Between 1996 and 1998, Nelson, Kristofferson, Cash, and Jennings provided the voice and dramatization for the Louis L'Amour Collection, a four-CD box set of seven Louis L'Amour stories published by the HighBridge Company, although the four were not credited as "The Highwaymen" in this work.
Besides the four formal members of the group, one other vocal artist appeared on a Highwaymen recording: Johnny Rodriguez, who provided Spanish vocal on "Deportee", a Woody Guthrie composition, from the album Highwayman.
The four starred in one movie together: the 1986 film Stagecoach.
In 1990, the original members of the 1950s-'60s folk group of the same name sued The Highwaymen over their use of the name, which was inspired by a Jimmy Webb ballad the country stars had recorded. The suit was dropped when all parties agreed that the folk group owned the name but that the earlier group would grant a nonexclusive, nontransferable license to the supergroup to use the name. The two groups then shared the stage at a 1990 concert in Hollywood. [1]
Formed in 1985, the group did not have an official name when they released their first two albums on Columbia Records. The first album, Highwayman , was credited to "Nelson, Jennings, Cash, Kristofferson". The single "Highwayman", a Jimmy Webb composition, became a #1 country hit. Their cover of Guy Clark's "Desperados Waiting for a Train" reached the Top 20. The album was produced by Chips Moman.
In 1990, the four members reunited for a second effort, titled Highwayman 2 , which reached #4 on the country album chart. The Lee Clayton-penned song "Silver Stallion" was the first single and made the country Top 40. The album was nominated for a Grammy for Best Country Vocal Collaboration. Highwayman 2 was produced, once again, by Moman. Six of the songs were written or co-written by members of the group.
The group's final release (now listed as "Highwaymen") prior to Jennings's death in 2002 was 1995's Don Was-produced album The Road Goes on Forever , (a Robert Earl Keen cover), with the single, "It Is What It Is". A tenth-anniversary edition of The Road Goes on Forever appeared in 2005, with several bonus tracks added as well as, in some versions, a DVD containing the video for "It Is What It Is" and a documentary titled Live Forever – In the Studio with the Highwaymen.
The band continued to tour into the late 1990s, before Jennings and Cash both started to decline in health, which prevented them from maintaining a full touring schedule. All four continued to perform as solo artists, with Jennings briefly joining another country supergroup, Old Dogs; Jennings died in 2002, and Cash died in 2003.
Nelson and Kristofferson have also collaborated on multiple occasions since the deaths of Jennings and Cash, but they have not been credited as The Highwaymen for these occasions. For example, in November 2003, Nelson and Kristofferson reunited to perform "Big River", one of Cash's songs that he had re-recorded in 1985 with his Highwaymen bandmates, with George Jones at a Grand Ole Opry-sponsored memorial concert for Cash at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee. [2]
"Those tours and the records we made were a great time," recalled Kristofferson in 2010. "I just wish I was more aware of how lucky I was to share a stage with those people. I had no idea that two of them would be done so soon. Hell, I was up there and I had all my heroes with me. These are guys whose ashtrays I used to clean. I'm kinda amazed I wasn't more amazed." [3]
In 2012, Kristofferson, Jamey Johnson, and Snoop Dogg collaborated with Nelson on the single "Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die". [4]
In 2016, Nelson and Kristofferson recorded a virtual collaboration of “One Too Many Mornings”, featuring archived vocals by Cash and Jennings recorded during the 1980s. This was released as a bonus track on the 2016 live album “Live: American Outlaws,” recorded at Nassau Coliseum in 1990.
Title | Album details | Peak chart positions | Certifications (sales threshold) | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
US Country [5] | US [6] | AUS [7] | CAN Country [8] | DEN | NOR | |||
Highwayman |
| 1 | 92 | 23 | — | — | — | |
Highwayman 2 |
| 4 | 79 | 9 | — | — | — | |
The Road Goes On Forever |
| 42 | — | 46 | 10 | 8 | 11 | |
"—" denotes releases that did not chart | ||||||||
Title | Album details | Peak positions | Sales | |
---|---|---|---|---|
US Country [5] | AUS [11] | |||
The Highwaymen Ride Again (Import Only - Greece & Netherlands) |
| — | — | |
Highwayman Super Hits |
| — | — | |
Country Legends |
| — | — | |
The Essential Highwaymen |
| — | — | |
Live: American Outlaws |
| 16 | 89 |
|
The Very Best of the Highwaymen |
| 22 | — |
|
"—" denotes releases that did not chart | ||||
Year | Single | Peak chart positions | Album | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
US Country [14] | AUS [7] [15] | CAN Country [16] | CAN AC [17] | |||
1985 | "Highwayman" | 1 | 98 | 1 | 19 | Highwayman |
"Desperados Waiting for a Train" | 15 | — | 20 | — | ||
1990 | "Silver Stallion" | 25 | 123 | 21 | — | Highwayman 2 |
"Born and Raised in Black and White" | —A | — | — | — | ||
"American Remains" [18] | — | — | — | — | ||
1995 | "It Is What It Is" | — | — | — | — | The Road Goes on Forever |
2005 | "If He Came Back Again" | — | — | — | — | The Road Goes on Forever(re-issue) |
"—" denotes releases that did not chart | ||||||
Notes:
Year | Title | Director |
---|---|---|
1985 | "Highwayman" | Peter Israelson |
1990 | "Silver Stallion" | Jon Small |
1995 | "It Is What It Is" | Lowe/Don Was |
2016 | "Good Hearted Woman" [20] | Jon Small |
Year | Title | Details | Certification |
---|---|---|---|
1991 | Highwaymen Live! | filmed in 1990 at the Nassau Coliseum |
|
2003 | On the Road Again | filmed in 1992 in Aberdeen, Scotland | |
2016 | The Highwaymen Live at The Nassau Coliseum | filmed in 1990 at the Nassau Coliseum |
|
Kristoffer Kristofferson is an American retired country singer, songwriter and actor. Among his songwriting credits are "Me and Bobby McGee", "For the Good Times", "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", and "Help Me Make It Through the Night", all of which were hits for other artists.
"Me and Bobby McGee" is a song written by American singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson and originally performed by Roger Miller. Fred Foster shares the writing credit, as Kristofferson wrote the song based on a suggestion from Foster. A posthumously released version by Janis Joplin topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 1971, making the song the second posthumously released No. 1 single in U.S. chart history after "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding. Gordon Lightfoot released a version that reached number 1 on the Canadian country charts in 1970. Jerry Lee Lewis released a version that was number 1 on the country charts in December 1971/January 1972 as the "B" side of "Would You Take Another Chance on Me". Billboard ranked Joplin's version as the No. 11 song for 1971.
Lincoln Wayne "Chips" Moman was an American record producer, guitarist, and songwriter. He is known for working in R&B, pop music and country music, operating American Sound Studios and producing hit albums like Elvis Presley's 1969 From Elvis in Memphis and the 1985 debut album for The Highwaymen. Moman won a Grammy Award for co-writing "(Hey Won't You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song", a 1975 hit for B.J. Thomas.
Highwayman is the first studio album released by country supergroup The Highwaymen, comprising Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson. Highwayman, released through Columbia Records in 1985, was the group's first and most successful album.
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Lee Clayton was an American songwriter and musician. He notably wrote Waylon Jennings' 1972 outlaw country song "Ladies Love Outlaws".
Highwayman 2 is the second studio album released by American country supergroup The Highwaymen. This album was released in 1990 on the Columbia Records label. Johnny Cash had left Columbia several years earlier, making this a "homecoming", and ultimately his final work for Columbia as the next Highwaymen album would be issued on another label.
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"Highwayman" is a song written by American singer-songwriter Jimmy Webb about a soul with incarnations in four different places in time and history: as a highwayman, a sailor, a construction worker on the Hoover Dam, and finally as a captain of a starship. The song was influenced by the real-life hanged highwayman Jonathan Wild. Webb first recorded the song on his album El Mirage, released in May 1977. The following year, Glen Campbell recorded his version on his 1979 album Highwayman.
"Big River" is a song written and originally recorded by Johnny Cash. Released as a single by Sun Records in 1958, it went as high as #4 on the Billboard country music charts and stayed on the charts for 14 weeks. The song tells a story of the chase of a lost love along the course of Mississippi River from Saint Paul, Minnesota to New Orleans, Louisiana.
"I Still Miss Someone" is a song co-written by Johnny Cash and his nephew Roy Cash, Jr. and originally recorded by American country music singer Johnny Cash. He first recorded it in 1958 as the B-side to "Don't Take Your Guns to Town".
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"Silver Stallion" is a song written by Lee Clayton and originally released by him on his 1978 album Border Affair.
"Born and Raised in Black and White" is a song written by Don Cook and John Barlow Jarvis, and originally recorded by The Highwaymen on their 1990 album Highwaymen 2. Mark Collie covered it for his 1991 album Born and Raised in Black & White, and Brooks & Dunn on their 1998 album If You See Her.
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