In 2016, when Shires was finishing her record, "My Piece Of Land", in music producer Dave Cobb's studio, Shires had an idea to create a female country supergroup in homage to the legendary HIGHWAYMEN (consisting of Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson). At the same time, the lack of representation of female artists on country radio and at country music festivals had been publicly discussed by many journalists like Marissa Moss. While on tour in her van, Shires kept a running list of artists while listening to country radio, and noticed that there were very few women. When she called to request they play more female artists, she was directed to a Facebook page lottery system. Cobb recommended Shires call Carlile, who she didn't know. Carlile thought it would be fun, and would be an interesting creative project.
THE HIGHWOMAN project was widely hinted at by Carlile, Morris and Shires before it was officially announced on April 6, 2019. THE HIGHWOMAN had originally intended to leave the fourth spot in their line-up vacant to allow other female collaborators to join them, with Chely Wright, Courtney Marie Andrews, Margo Price, Janelle Monáe, and Sheryl Crow mentioned as potential guests. The band, who jokingly refer to the collaboration as a pirate ship experience, said that they see the project as an incubator project that highlights mentorship and support of fellow women artists.
The group made their live debut on April 1, 2019, at Loretta Lynn's 87th birthday concert held at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. There, Natalie Hemby was officially revealed as the final member and the quartet performed "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels".
The album opens with "Highwomen", a re-written version of the Jimmy Webb penned classic, "Highwayman". The song was re-written by band members Brandi Carlile and Amanda Shires with Webb's blessing. Together they created the story of the band in classic response-song style. The song tells the story of how women throughout history have often sacrificed themselves for something greater. The four women in the song are an immigrant, a healer, a freedom rider, and a preacher. It features guest vocals from Yola and background vocals from Sheryl Crow.
Enjoy today's fantastic version of "Highwomen"
Here is a clip with Yolo and Sheryl Crow live at Girls Just Wanna Weekend 2 in Mexico 2020-01-31.
Since we have stayed at Americana Roots and Singer-songwriter Country all week, I thought we should end it all with something a little extra.
THE HIGHWAYMEN was 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 1999, 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.
Today's tune "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. The dam builder verse alludes to the deaths of over one hundred men during the construction of Hoover Dam near Boulder City, Nevada, although none of those deaths resulted in a person being encased in concrete. Webb first recorded the song on his album "El Mirage", released in May 1977. The following year, Glen Campbell recorded his version, which was released on his 1979 album Highwayman. In 1985, the song became the inspiration for the naming of the supergroup THE HIGHWAYMEN, which featured Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson. Their first album, "Highwayman", became a number one platinum-selling album, and their version of the song went to number one on the Hot Country Songs Billboard chart in a 20 week run. Their version earned Webb a Grammy Award for Best Country Song in 1986. The song has since been recorded by other artists. Webb himself included a different version on his 1996 album Ten Easy Pieces, a live version on his 2007 album Live and at Large, and a duet version with Mark Knopfler on the 2010 album Just Across the River.
In THE HIGHWAYMENs version of the song, each of the four verses was sung by a different performer: first Nelson as the highwayman, then Kristofferson as the sailor, then Jennings as the dam builder, and finally Cash as the starship captain. Webb later observed, "I don't know how they decided who would take which verse, but having Johnny last was like having God singing your song (laughs)."[2] Rosanne Cash has said her father did not realize the song was about reincarnation until she explained it to him. A black-and-white music video was released, which used actors to re-enact the song's lyrics, including the deaths of the first three characters. Each of the performers is seen briefly in the sky singing a few lines, as their segment of the song concludes
Here is a live clip where THE HIGHWAYMEN performing "Highwayman" from American Outlaws: Live at Nassau Coliseum, 1990
