1991

The Highwaymen
Memorial Drive
May, 1991.

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

This is the age of the conglomerate. After the takeovers, the buy-outs and the barracuda raids have come rationalisation, employee-led rescues and all the other attempts at damage control. No less so in rock and roll. Lately, there’s been a whole lot of corporate huddling going on. Take the Travelling Wilburys for example – bigger than you know-who and not even deterred when Roy Orbison collected his dividend. In this time of re-issues, digital re-mastering and the chart supremacy of the ragbag movie soundtrack, the equivalent on the concert stage is bound to attract subscribers.

It’s a nice concept, value for money- and something of a novelty in live rock performance. So when The Highwaymen come along – in alphabetical order, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson- who wouldn’t hand over their valuables. Publicists would call this a legendary line-up. Two hundred and twenty six years of cowboy/rock/tex mex/rockabilly/ whiney Nashville history. This is the Mt Rushmore of country music, the four goodest ol’ boys you ever saw.

And four is a good symmetrical number- when ah think of the four suits the man used to say in The Deck of Cards, ah think of the four apostles. This time without their teaspoons, the substance-free Highwaymen look like the Wild Bunch in Florida, relaxed, solvent (even Willie) and happy to be sharing the weight.

The backing band opens up, a ten cylinder machine which is testimony of the pervasive influence of rock, even in what passes for heartland country music. The rhythm section lays a baseline which never falters in two hours while Reggie Young on lead guitar and Rocky Turner on pedal steel garnish with every idiom they can find. If someone needs a fiddle sound, Young hits a switch, for barrelhouse piano Bobby Woods pummels away at his Roland.

The set opened with the Waylon Jennings mock weepie Mammas Dont Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys. Jimmie Rodgers would have had a fit. But he wouldn’t have been surprised – each of the Highwaymen has contributed to the hybridising of country genres, modernising, popularising and ensuring that this rogue mutant idiot bastard music still finds a place deep in the cardiac tissue.

The chores moved quickly between singers- each taking a verse and all, plus some healing voices from the ten behind, on the hooks and bridges. It became as clear as piss in the sunshine that we were going to hear a lot of songs that have been very good to their owners through the years. Jennings amply introduced his theme from the Dukes of Hazzard , Cash got out his death-rattle croon for Folsom Prison Blues, Willie Nelson his nasal tenor for Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain and Kristofferson, without a second glance at the storm clouds over Memorial Drive, sang Help Me Make it Through the Night.

They may be a band but the Highwaymen maintain their separate identikits. The Mattel Willie Nelson has a stetson and a plait, Waylon is in black and white Gene Autry bad taste, Kristofferson, in rock leather and jeans, has trimmed up but you can put the same old TM next to Johnny Cash. In bible belt gothic he still looks like Elmer Gantry’s brother and his version of Ring of Fire still has a ring of half-truth about it. June Carter Cash, waiting in the wings, took a bow while Johnny mumbled awkwardly about her being the light of his life, or his spark-plug, or something to do with his ignition. The trouble with courtly tributes in country music is that they all sound like crash repairs.

Willie took the lead and then Kristofferson took the spotlight for Loving Her was Easier . Back to Willie for You Were Always on My Mind and then Kristofferson managed to mangle Me and Bobby McGhee with the wackiest tempo he could find.

That was the exception though. Cash, with some significant help from the band, brought his 1957 rockabilly hit Get Rhythm into present perfect- proving that he too was a Memphis Sun king. Kristofferson brought some social protest to the meeting with Johnny Lobo and Willie Nelson’s Still Still Moving to Me was a highpoint, fluid in both vocal and guitar. His rendition of I Love You So Much it Hurts Me strained credulity but prepared the unwary for a splendidly hokey Ghost Riders in the Sky, complete with yippie-yi-ays, which Johnny Cash disarmingly followed with Don’t Take Your Guns to Town.

Waylon Jennings worked the crowd with Amanda, Light of My Life and a string of his surreal honky tonk signature tunes. Waylon moves with thoughtful deliberation and likes to rest a lot between engagements but he moved like the wind with his joint homage to Presley and Flintstone jelly -Yabba Dabba Doo the King is gone and I am too. The gang of four then hit a mournful spot with Desperadoes Waiting For the Train and Johnny Cash closed the set. With I’ll Walk the Line surely ? Numb with disappointment, I momentarily lost the plot. I think it was Orange Blossom Special.

Encores all round. Cash was first. I’ll Walk the Line? Sorry. A Man Named Sue, subtle as a pit bull. Kristofferson rinsed us in the blood with Help Me Jesus. Waylon, a more secular soul, swayed lasciviously through Some Basics of Love. Willie, with hardly a thought for the IRS, sang On the Road Again. The Highwaymen had played for two and a quarter hours, the rain had fallen neither on the just nor the unjust, and the four hoarse men had been a revelation. I just want to know what happened to I’ll Walk the Line.

The Adelaide Review, No.89, June, 1991, p.29.