THE HIGHWAYMEN – Super Country Group With CASH, NELSON, KRISTOFFERSON And JENNINGS Released Their Debut Album 40 Years Ago Today
Significant longplayers from the past
6 May 2025
THE HIGHWAYMEN was an American country supergroup with four of the greatest
singer-songwriters of the genre. Johnny Cash (1932-2003), Waylon Jennings (1937-2002), Willie Nelson (he just celebrated his 91st birthday) and Kris Kristofferson (1936-2024).
Jennings wrote in his 1996 memoir: “John had brought our four personalities together
initially, in Monteux, Switzerland, in 1984. Every year, he had a television Christmas special,
and that holiday season he wanted us all to come over. We started trading songs in the hotel after we worked on the special, and someone said, like they always do, we oughta cut the album. Usually everyone goes their separate ways after that, but the idea took hold.”
The group wasn’t named The Highwaymen from the beginning. On their first two LPs, they are credited as ‘Nelson, Jennings, Cash, Kristofferson’. The official name which came to be widely recognized began to be used only in later years, and their last collaborative effort, The Road Goes on Forever, was credited to The Highwaymen.
Between 1985 and 1995, the luminaries recorded/released 3 albums.
The self-titled debut one came out on 6 May 1985, today 40 years ago.
AllMusic said: “Before rock & roll gave listeners the Traveling Wilburys, country music spawned the Highwaymen, a supergroup of mythic proportions that featured living legends Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson. The foursome had worked together in various combinations over the years, but teamed up under the Highwaymen umbrella in 1985. Their first single together, “Highwayman,” topped the country charts that year and spawned an album of the same name on Columbia. The album also proved mightily popular, hitting number one on the country listings.”
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