Even with the enormous repertoire of classic songs they have at hand when playing together, they still find time for charming goofing around between songs and in such numbers as “The King Is Gone (So Are You),” and for surprise duet pairings on songs from their solo records. Kristofferson’s indelible numbers-“Me and Bobby McGee,” “Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again)”-as they had on records.Īs is fitting for a gang of individuals, each gets a short set in concert where they lead the others-and the versatile band behind them includes instrumental stars of their regular bands.
And they all take particular pleasure in featuring some of Mr. When Willie Nelson takes off with one of his patented, powerful acoustic guitar improvisations, Jennings (no guitar slouch himself) beams.
Kristofferson, it’s revealed, had admired that last song more than any other from the 1950s and insisted that Cash, who wrote the number, feature it. Since none of the four stars were particularly inclined toward harmony singing, instead tending to trade off verses in duets they’d done, it’s all the more dramatic and welcome when they let loose with unison or harmony choruses on such bravura numbers as “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys,” “Desperados Waiting for a Train” and “Big River.” Mr. The experiences, pleasures and irritations these icons shared forged a bond between them-a bond that showed especially on the stage and now can be seen and heard in the musical interactions in the “Highwaymen Live” performance film. “They are,” Jennings’s widow, singer-songwriter Jessi Colter notes in the PBS film, “icons of popular American music, not just country. (They’d all appear together, along with friends and families, in a 1986 remake of the classic “Stagecoach” western.) There were some political differences between them, which occasionally led to minor friction, but deep-seated American respect for speaking up was a central part of each of their characters, so it stayed minor. All had crossed musical borders at times into the rock and folk arenas, and all had screen careers-Mr. Cash had been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame before the group assembled all four would eventually be honored that way, and all had, if only reluctantly, accepted the “Outlaw Country” marketing label applied to them for bucking established Nashville musical practices of their day.
#American masters the highwaymen full
The latter includes a never-before-seen film of a full March 1990 Highwaymen concert at Long Island’s Nassau Coliseum.Īs both the PBS documentary, produced and directed by Jim Brown, and the thoughtful, extensive liner notes to the live set by Mikal Gilmore remind us, when the idea of forming a group was floated by the four friends after a joint appearance on a 1984 Johnny Cash Christmas telecast, it was no given that the combined lineup would work musically or prove more than a short lark.Īll of the men were already rugged, leathery heroes of country music. This month, there are new opportunities to reconsider how that collection of sometimes ornery, individualistic, middle-aged mavericks collaborated and managed to last as a unit, and to experience anew the flavor of their performances together: The documentary “The Highwaymen: Friends Till the End” has its debut May 27 as a PBS American Masters entry, and a new multiple CD and DVD set, “The Highwaymen Live: American Outlaws,” has just been released by Sony Legacy.
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