The intertwined creativity of Waylon, Willie, Cash and Kristofferson

Though Waylon, Willie, Cash and Kristofferson recorded three full albums as The Highwaymen, the foursome had much richer musical relationships than the purpose-built quartet dates. Legacy’s 2-disc Essential set documents both their official collaborations under the Highwayman moniker, and the duets and covers that found these artists returning to one another over the course of their careers. In addition to seven songs from the Highwaymen’s three albums, this thirty track collection includes solos and duets drawn from the artists’ original albums, television and stage performances (including tracks from the Johnny Cash Show and VH1’s Storytellers), and soundtracks. Among the riches are several covers of Kristofferson’s songs, including Nelson’s 2008 rendering of “Moment of Forever.”

The one previously unreleased track is a live version of Guy Clark’s “Desperados Waiting for a Train” recorded by the foursome at the 1993 Farm Aid concert, but the set’s real strength is its telling of the back-story through cuts sourced from twenty-five different albums. The collection paints a picture of four strong-willed, artistically-rich musical icons who found equal-strength partners in one another, and with whom they could collaborate without compromise. Their shared musical roots (neatly summarized in the trio of songs “The Night Hank Williams Came to Town,” “If You Don’t Like Hank Williams” and “Are You Sure Hank Done it this Way”) and hard-won artistic integrity bound them together like few other superstars, and the musical legacy they left as compadres is winningly excerpted in this set. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]