Album Review: The Highwaymen – Highwayman 2

Four years have passed since Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson topped the charts with their Highwayman album, produced by Chips Moman. By the late 80s, only Willie remained as a commercially viable artist. Cash’s contract with Columbia was now long gone and he wasn’t exactly rocketing up the charts with Mercury. In fact, in 1989, no new Cash material was released.  

As discussed in my review of Boom Chicka Boom, 1989 wasn’t a great year for Cash. It started well enough, first with recording Highwayman 2, and then his own Boom Chicka Boom. But he also had dental surgery that resulted in a broken jaw – never a good thing for a singer to have. By the end of the year, he was back in rehab, hoping to get his addictions under control again. 1990, thankfully, seemed more promising as these two albums were released a month apart, and for the first time, Cash hit the road with his three compatriots, now formally dubbed the Highwaymen. 

The second Highwaymen album is distinct from the first. The real novelty the first time around was Cash and Nelson finally singing together. As a result, the album went back and forth between group numbers and Cash/Nelson duets. Also, Cash was the only one of the four to bring songs to the table. This time around, however, we have all group numbers and each member contributing their own material. 

How then does it sound? Well, this is still a Chips Moman affair and, despite being more country sounding than the first thanks to more prominent steel guitar, it still has strong middle-of-the-road pop and rock influences. Being recorded in 1989, there are even some nods to the hair metal that was racing up the charts, in the form of glossy, ultra-distorted guitar solos. 

Some of the material here is exactly what you’d want from this group. The first two tracks are straight up outlaw. Silver Stallion was a single and has them all singing about riding off into the sunset. And Born and Raised in Black and White is an epic number, written by two veteran songwriters, Don Cook and John Barlow Jarvis (who were on the verge of major success in the 90s with Brooks & Dunn and Vince Gill respectively). It’s an awesome outlaw song about two brothers facing their destinies, one as a preacher, the other as a gunfighter. The chorus is huge and sounds great with these four voices. Waylon’s sole contribution, Angels Love Badmen, continues the outlaw vibe, but transferred to an urban context. Despite the clean chorus guitars, and wailing guitar solo that typify the slick late 80s sound, it’s a tale of a city banker distanced from his suburban wife, and her inability to resist those men who abandon her. 

Then there’s the wonderful American Remains, by little known songwriter Rivers Rutherford. A story of four characters, this is the spiritual heir to Highwayman’s tale of reincarnation, here speaking of the underdogs who built America. Along the way it tackles Native rights and environmentalism, and then wraps up with the powerful chorus: 

We are heroes of the homeland, American remains. 

We live in many faces and answer many names. 

We will not be forgotten, we won’t be left behind. 

Our memories live on in mortal minds, 

And poets’ pens: 

We’ll ride again. 

Kris’ Living Legends, a song that was a staple live, fits this mold as well. This update to the original from Kris’ 1978 album, Easter Island, is now rocked out with driving electric guitars. The upbeat feel adds zealousness to its social message. It challenges the current state of America, asking if the post-Vietnam nation is living up to the example set in Christ’s death and resurrection: Say, if she came again today, would you still answer the call? Kris also brings Anthem ‘84 to the table, a song that Johnny first attempted in his Johnny Cash is Coming to Town sessions, and it’s another driving political anthem, this time addressing US foreign policy: 

If you’re looking for a fighter who’ll defend you 

And love you for your Freedom. I’m your man. 

And I ain’t gonna leave you for the crazy things you’re doing 

But don’t ask me to lend a helping hand. 

You were such a pretty dream as I remember 

You were young and strong and God was on your side. 

But vision slowly faded like the wonder from your eyes 

And you traded your compassion for your pride. 

But I still believe in all that we believed in. 

And I pray to God that you will in the end. 

And you’ll see the golden chances that you’re wasting. 

And be the loving beauty that you can.  

Cash, too, seems to be on board with this direction. His Songs That Made a Difference is a personal narrative of a 1969 jam session at his home in Nashville with his buddies Kris, Shel Silverstein, and Roy Orbison, but also Laurel Canyon luminaries including Graham Nash, Joni Mitchell, and Bob Dylan. He laments the time when songs were written to change the world. In his telling on Letterman in 1986, that night saw the debut of Both Sides Now, Marrakesh Express, A Boy Named Sue, Lay Lady Lay, and Me and Bobby McGee. (David Letterman’s classic response: “good heavens… did you have snacks?”) 

Between the outlaw and the political material are a few personal songs. We’re All In Your Corner is a cheesy ballad by Chips sideman Bobby Emmons. But Willie Nelson provides some stronger material. Two Stories Wide is a beautiful ballad with all the usual Nelson treatments, notably his nylon string guitar and Mickey Raphael on harmonica. And Texas is a tribute to his homestate, where some of the country sounds overtake Chips’ 80s keyboards. 

As you compare the contributions of these four songwriters, though, you begin to realize the real weakness of the album: despite having even more group vocals than the first album, it’s a somewhat fractured affair. Waylon is still singing outlaw songs about bad boys. Willie’s singing sentimental ballads. Kris has the driving political tunes. And Cash stand somewhere in the middle, as if he’s trying to hold his friends together. I’ll document the companion live album from the 1990 tour below, but these fractures become more apparent in the live format. 

Dig a little deeper, and you’ll find some further weaknesses as well. Despite Chips’ signature studio polish, some of the material feels unfinished. Two Stories Wide has a wonderful melody and interesting metaphor, but it’s hardly more than a verse, a chorus, and a Willie guitar solo. And then there’s that single, Silver Stallion. It starts off well enough, as a tale of an aging cowboy, but then it drops into some awful tropes: 

I’m gonna find me a reckless woman, 

Razor blades and dice in her eyes 

Just a touch of sadness in her fingers, 

Thunder and lightning in her thighs 

Really? Thunder and lightning in her thighs? Yikes. After that second verse (sung by Waylon, who is probably the best one of the four to utter those cringe-inducing lines), the chorus is repeated, and then the song just stops. Like, stops dead as if they totally ran out of inspiration. 

It may simply be however, that they didn’t run out of inspiration, but just ran out of time. The bulk of the album was in fact recorded over 4 days in March of 1989. This might also explain the sytlistic diversity. Chips had his usual studio players on hand – Bobby Emmons, Bobby Wood, Robbie Turner, Gene Chrisman, and Reggie Young – and my guess is they just played to the song. A driving horse song for Waylon? Yep. A rocking political anthem for Kris? Yep. Trad country for Cash? Sure. Laid-back latin-influenced ballad for Willie? You got it. They’re studio pros, but a unified character gets lost. 

In sum, then, I find this album to be a bit of a mixed bag. The group vocals sound fantastic and really carry much of the material. And to a certain point the stylistic diversity keeps things interesting. But there is still some weaker material that pulls down what could have been a collaboration for the ages. I’ll still be generous though… 

4/5 

Other Songs from the Era: 

• Highwaymen Live: Perhaps what’s most amazing about Highwayman 2 is not that there was a follow-up to the first album, but that this time around there was actually a tour. Even better, the March 14, 1990 concert from Nassau was filmed for posterity. The band here is Chips’ studio pros, plus Mickey Raphael, and the live arrangements veer more toward traditional country than the pop leanings of the stduio versions. There are several Highwaymen tunes given the live treatment here: Highwayman, Silver Stallion, The Last Cowboy Song, Two Stories Wide, Living Legend, plus the fun Highwayman 2 outtake, George Jones’ The King is Gone (So Are You). Where this album shines, though, is in the solo material that’s brought to the table. It’s awesome hearing all four of them help out on each others’ hits. My personal fave has to be the definitive version of Cash & Waylon’s Ain’t No Good Chain Gang, thanks to Cash’s hilarious ad libs. But when they’re all singing along to something like City of New Orleans or Good Hearted Woman or On the Road Again, how can you help but smile? My only complaint is directed at Kristofferson. There were rumblings that his political diatribes were rubbing Waylon the wrong way. Whether that’s true or not, he turns virtually all of his songs into straight ahead four-on-the-floor rockers. The persistent drive of these songs matches his personal determination to speak truth, and it works well for one or two songs like They Killed Him or Living Legend. But when it starts extending into Me and Bobby McGee or what might be the greatest song of all time, Help Me Make It Through the Night, he just bulldozes over these sensitive classics. But that’s a minor quibble when you have four great performers with a solid band cranking out over 30 songs for the ages. Wow. Released in abridged format to VHS in 1990 as Highwayman Live, the full concert was released to CD in 2016 as The Highwaymen – Live and is a must purchase for any fan of any of these singers. The CD also contains a bonus DVD with their follow-up Live Aid performances, which I will cover in subsequent reviews. 

Album Review: Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins – Class of ’55

In a little over a year, Johnny Cash was onto his fourth album with Chips Moman, the uber-producer responsible for driving country megastars into the middle of the road through giant crossover hits like You Were Always On My Mind. The solo album Rainbow sessions were quickly overtaken by the Highwayman sessions that led to a #1 album by Cash, Willie Nelson, Kris Kirstofferson and Waylon Jennings. Next, before Rainbow was released in October 1985, Cash had finished sessions for what would become the Heroes duet album with Waylon Jennings. And then Chips had another idea… 

Given his roots were in Memphis and it was now 30 years since the serendipitous year at Sun Records when rock and roll was arguably born, what if he got together his current artist, Cash, with his old friends Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Roy Orbison to pay tribute to that place and time? And so, in September 1985, it happened. A few days in the studio to pay tribute to a historical moment in time. 

The idea of getting Cash, Lewis, Perkins, and Orbison to collaborate seemed genius. With the Highwayman album topping the charts, it certainly made sense. Interestingly, Chips didn’t have permission to make the album, and ultimately wound up paying Columbia $100,000 for Cash’s involvement. This is even more ironic because Cash’s contract with Columbia was coming up for renewal, and they weren’t excited to re-sign the legendary – but no longer chart-topping – Cash. In fact, he would have just one more session later that year – a few overdubs for the Heroes album – before Cash and Columbia would part ways. I’m guessing they weren’t forthcoming with Chips that Cash was done at the label and were more than happy to take his money! 

As it turned out in the end, Cash’s final album for Columbia, Heroes, and this little side project, Class of ‘55, would be released a week apart from each other in May 1986. By then, Cash was signed to Mercury and in a final ironic twist, Class of ‘55 would be a one-off release on the America/Smash label, a sister label to Mercury. Maybe if Chips had just waited a few months, this would have been Johnny’s first Mercury release and he could have saved a hundred grand! 

So what is this album that fell between the cracks in Johnny’s label transitions? Well, first, it’s no Highwayman, despite Chips’ leadership. Where that album was an artistic statement of these great voices singing in the moment about issues they cared about – death, mental illness, independence – this collaboration was all about the past. And remember, Cash, Lewis, and Perkins had only released the Survivors Live album a few years earlier, plus the four of them sang a tribute to Elvis on Johnny’s 1977 Christmas special, so there was a lot less novelty here. In contrast, The Highwayman got Cash and Nelson together for the first time ever – which is why half the album is duets by those two! 

As an album looking back at the past, the music has a nostalgic feel, distinct from Highwayman’s modern country pop. Recorded in Memphis with Carl on guitar and Jerry Lee on piano, these are intended to harken back to the old days. And the lyrics certainly do look back! Side 1 begins with Carl playing on one of Johnny’s old Sun hits: 

I was there when it happened, don’t you think I oughta know? I watched Memphis give birth to rock and roll. 

And by the end of the side we have not one, but two tributes to Elvis Presley: the group singing “The King is dead, but he ain’t gone” on Waylon Jennings’ Waymore’s Blues, and the Cash-led We Remember The King penned by the ever historic-focused songwriter Paul Kennerley.  

The problem, however, is that Chips can never just let his musicians play their stuff, as we heard three of these guys do on the excellent Survivors Live album. Instead, where Carl takes the first guitar solo on Birth of Rock and Roll, one of Chips’ faithful sessionmen plays the second solo. Does he not remember that Carl played lead guitar in Johnny’s band on so many great late 60s and early 70s albums? And why, if you have Mr. Blue Suede Shoes who inspired none other than George Harrison, would you want a generic 80s guitar solo shoved in there? It might sound au courant, but it doesn’t get you one step closer to Memphis 1955.  

And why, oh why, if you have Jerry Lee in the room, would you not have him play piano on every single song? I know Bobby Emmons co-wrote Class of ‘55, but put him in the background on the organ, and let Jerry fly out front. Instead, Jerry plays piano on his two solo numbers – Sixteen Candles and Keep My Motor Running – but is otherwise just singing background vocals on the rest of the album. 

Now that I’ve raised the solo numbers, why are there so many of them, and why are they so disparate? Carl starts things off right with Birth of Rock and Roll and Class of ‘55. These two fit the theme of the album. But track two is Jerry singing Sixteen Candles? Sure, it’s an oldie, but what does it have to do with memories of Memphis? And, more importantly, didn’t anybody think to say, “Um, Jerry, you’re 50 years old, so maybe it’s not a good idea to sing about how much you’re in love with a sixteen year-old girl? You’ve just started your sixth marriage, and you basically blew up your career when you married your 13-year-old cousin while still married to your second wife, so let’s just sing another song…” At least Keep My Motor Running isn’t creepy, but It’s not much else either. It’s a lost track from Randy Bachman’s post-BTO band Ironhorse that was originally an AC/DC-light hard rock tune, and is here turned into a by-the-numbers piano boogie. 

Johnny’s solo numbers are an improvement, but it’s not a high bar. We Remember The King at least reminds us of the purpose of the album. And I Will Rock and Roll With You also fits the theme, but is no improvement to the 1978 single version from Gone Girl, released just after Elvis’ death. Thankfully, Roy Orbison, while only offering up one solo number, makes sure it’s a winner. I’m Coming Home is a powerful ballad, despite some cheesy 80s production. Co-written by Eagles’ songwriter J.D. Souther and rising lyricist star Will Jennings (who would later go on to pen Tears in Heaven and My Heart Will Go On), Roy has said he was brought to tears singing the song, and I can believe it. He may have been in a career slump at the time, but this song feels like a turning point for him. 

Then there are three collaborative tunes. Waymore’s Blues has an awesome train groove to it, and comes as a breath of fresh air after the album opens with three solo numbers. Rock and Roll (Fais-Do-Do) is just terrible. A beyond cheesy 80s rock song that has Cash talk-singing in his lowest voice about how rock and roll “drives the women crazy”. Yikes. 

But closer Big Train (from Memphis) is thankfully a winner. Written by John Fogerty for his 1985 comeback album Centerfield, it’s turned into a 7-minute jam here with everybody singing and playing along, including a guest appearance by the Judds and Ricky Nelson. However, play Fogerty’s own version and you’ll hear exactly what’s wrong with the Class of ‘55 album. Fogerty’s album was a success because it was raw and natural, just like his classic CCR records. Class of ‘55 is stiff and sterile, a classic example of why the 80s would swamp so many veteran artists in its changing tides of modern music technology. Big Train could have been even bigger… Marty Stuart was in on all of these sessions and, oh, how I wish there was guitar duelling between him and Carl Perkins, with some competitive interplay with Jerry Lee’s piano. All of these songs would have been better if they had just let these masters play the damn music. 

Which leads me to my final point… if this was all about looking back to Memphis 55, why are there no Elvis covers here? Once upon a time, the Million Dollar Quartet gathered around a piano and sang for an hour, and whose voice dominated? The King’s of course! So, instead of singing about him, they should have just sang to him with his own songs. 

This album would have made for a solid single… Big Train on Side A, Waymore’s Blues on the flip. And Orbison could have saved the immaculate I’m Coming Home for his own album. Everyone would have bought a fun little 45 like that, and Chips could probably have saved his $100,000. Instead we got a bloated album that makes these four patriarchs seem like a fading memory of the past. 

2.5/5 

Other Songs from the Era: 

• Suffer Little Children – Glen Campbell and Johnny duet on this schamltzy gospel number from a 1986 compilation on Arrival Records, Country Gospel Together in Harmony. The song’s message of hope for children is nice, but didn’t Johnny feel a bit strange singing this, knowing how harsh life had been for his kids during his darkest days? 
• Waiting for a Southern Train – Johnny’s son-in-law and bass player Jimmy TIttle was working on his first album. It’s straight up 1985 country, and Johnny contributes some nice harmonies. Unfortunately, the self-titled album never really went anywhere, only being released in France in 1990. 
• 10^th Anniversary Christmas Special – Johnny’s 10^th and final Christmas special marks the end of the Columbia era. Released before the Class of ‘55 album, it includes both Rainbow and Big Train, an indication of what Johnny saw as his most viable songs at the time. 
• Interviews from the Class of ‘55 – Some versions of the album came with an interview disc which also won a Grammy Award. 
• Memphis Class of ‘55 – a documentary was filmed during the recording sessions. It was finally released on TBS in 1989. 

Album Review: Johnny Cash – Rainbow

I have some very mixed feelings writing this review. It’s been over eight years since I set out on my mission of reviewing every Johnny Cash release from the Columbia era. There are still a few more collaborations to go, but Rainbow constitutes Johnny’s final solo album in the Columbia era. While this review is a significant milestone for me, sadly my final review of a Columbia Cash album is for my least favourite of them all. Coming into this review, I was assuming this would be an obvious 1/5 review. Let’s see where we end up…

By 1984, at least one thing was going right for Cash – he checked himself into the Betty Ford Clinic in late 1983 and got clean. He has claimed his renewed challenges began with a near-fatal attack by an ostrich on his farm that had him hospitalized and on morphine. However, while that may be partially true, we know he had actually been struggling with pills again since 1977, and that, in turn, led to some serious marital problems. 1984, then, was a year of renewal on many fronts. 

Sadly, that would not extend to his professional life. In April, he reunited with Billy Sherrill who produced his last hit, 1981’s The Baron, for another stab at the charts, countrypolitan style. The advance single, The Chicken in Black, was received so poorly that the whole album was scrapped. Coming on the heels of a shelved gospel album and his Columbia contract coming up for renewal, Cash really needed a hit. 

Enter Chips Moman. This was the guy who architected Elvis’ top late career material, notably Suspicious Minds and In the Ghetto. More so, Chips almost always worked with The Memphis Boys, a team of crack session musicians who, much like Johnny’s Tennessee Three, had been with him for a long time: Reggie Young on guitar, Bobby Emmons and Bobby Wood on piano/organ/keyboards, and Gene Chrisman on drums. Factor in Chips’ wife Toni Wine on Davis, and you would think this Memphis-rooted family affair would make Cash feel right at home. 

With a top producer and crack band in tow, Rainbow also brought some exciting songs to the table. Look at how Cash described them in the liner notes: 

“Every once in awhile a song comes along for me that gives me a boost. This has been the key to my continuing to enjoy performing after 30 years… a really great song, gives me such a lift… Such a song is Kristofferson’s “Here Comes That Rainbow Again.” The lyrics are so good… “Unwed Fathers’, written by John Prine and Bobby Braddock, may be depressing to some of you, but it’s something that needs to be said for women… “They’re All The Same”, was written by Willie Nelson 20 years ago… For me, 1965 was a down year and it was of the many things I lost. I only recently rediscovered it. I wrote “I’m Leaving You” in Australia… I wrote “You Beat All I Ever Saw” twenty years ago when Waylon and I were sharing an apartment… When I recorded this, my brother Waylon was hanging out with me most of the time and he was a great encouragement and inspiration… Jessi Colter was there too… one of the world’s great women. “Casey’s Last Ride” is one of those songs Kristofferson gave me 15 years ago and I threw it in the lake. June and Anita Carter kept telling me that I should record it… [the other four] were contribute by Chips Moman. I love all four them, especially “Easy Street”. You know I can relate to that song.” 

Johnny Cash – Rainbow Liner Notes

I include this long excerpt because it drips of Cash’s enthusiasm. You can hear how he’s in a time of revival, revisiting things he had missed and creating something new he was truly excited about. 

So what went wrong? 

Well, opener I’m Leaving Now sounds like old school Cash. A bit derivative of Hank Snow’s I’m Moving On (but this time dedicated to the music industry instead of a woman), it’s a fun, upbeat number. Beyond that, there is some excellent songwriting here, too. Prine’s Unwed Fathers takes an honest look at teenage pregnancy. There’s a classic Creedence Clearwater Revival song in Have You Ever Seen the Rain? And Cash is right that Here Comes That Rainbow Again is indeed a top-notch Kristofferson tune, finding the beauty in simple human generosity. 

But listen to how that song opens, with those cheesy 80s keyboard sounds. With its slow loping waltz, I’m not even sure that this is country music. Country-inflected soft rock? And once we’re through the opening track, it’s cheesy keyboard effect after cheesy keyboard effect. Moman makes sure that every nook and cranny is filled with a responding brass sound, synth sitar, or some chiming bell.  

Look a little deeper, and you’ll see exactly what’s happening. First, apart from Marty Stuart, whose mandolin is his best on a Cash record yet, his band is entirely absent here. Compare this to Believe in Me, which Marty produced a year or so earlier. On that album you could hear how well the Johnny Cash Show Band interacted. This was a paired down version of The Great Eighties Eight featuring Earl Poole Ball on piano, Bob Wooten on electric guitar, Marty on mandolin (and a bit of guitar), Fluke Holland on drums, and Jimmy Tittle on bass. And while, Cash’s sound had changed since his early days with the Tennessee Two, there was a continuity through his sonic evolution leading to this band. They were still driven by Fluke’s snare and Wooten’s boom-chicka-boom leads, and then Marty and Earl’s virtuosity enhanced that foundation with the ability to pivot around changing country trends. 

In Moman’s hands, however, the foundation is gone. Fluke’s snare is replaced with classy cymbal flourishes. There’s no boom-chicka-boom. Everything is pampered in soft fades and gentle echoes. And then there’s this note in the credits: 

Special Thanks To The Incredible Casio 8000 

Rainbow Album Credits

A thank you to a synthesizer? Yikes! 

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all in favour of the evolution of Johnny’s sound. I’ll also be more forgiving when it comes to Moman’s work with The Highwaymen. But this is a Johnny Cash album and we should have learned by now that total overhauls like the John R. Cash album don’t work. His future needs to be tied into his past for it to work. 

Admittedly, this album tries so hard to tie into Johnny’s past, but in such strange ways. Johnny had actually never collaborated directly with Willie Nelson, yet they find a song Willie wrote for Cash twenty years ago… and then play it exactly like a Willie tune (complete with a nylon-string guitar solo played so exactly in Willie’s inimitable style that I refuse to believe this isn’t an uncredited Nelson!). Then, they have Waylon sing background vocals but wash it into a dense mix that robs any character from his offering. And what about that old tune of Cash’s, You Beat All I Ever Saw? Johnny may like this song, but it tanked in the charts in the 60s (thanks in part to a stale trumpet arrangement), and will bore you to death in this molasses-slow update. 

If that’s not bad enough, Chips’ own contributions are worse. He brought a CCR tune to Johnny and give it a stiff interpretation that definitely disappoints. And his self-penned (with Bobby Emmons) Easy Street and Borderline are really bland. In fact, I have no idea what Borderline is even about (a musical whodunnit? What?) The only half-decent number in this group is Love Me Like You Used To. But that’s another case of Johnny putting out an ok version of a great song that would be bested by someone else. Kenny Rogers did it with the Gambler, and this time it will be Tanya Tucker who would score a #2 hit with this tune. 

I will admit, however, that in revisiting this album, I was singing along in my first listen, and I thought I had only heard this album a handful of times. Indeed, when I started listening to Cash in the early 2000s, my local library still had this one on cassette (yes, they still had cassettes, and I still had a player in my car!). All I could remember from that cursory listen was “80s keyboard ballads and a bad CCR cover”. I eventually bought a used copy of the LP to fill out my collection, and then got the CD with the Complete Columbia box set, but am not sure I even listened to it. 

To the album’s credit, it is actually an easy listen. All those soft Casio keyboards and gently layered backing vocals let the album kind of drift along. So is it truly horrible? Maybe not.  Rainbow and Unwed Fathers are great songs, and I’d probably keep I’m Leaving Now because of its classic Cash vibe. None of the other songs are offensive, and there are little musical flourishes here and there of interest. So maybe it’s not a 1/5, but it’s not the monumental album that Cash raved about in the notes, and it definitely wasn’t enough to save his career. 

2/5 

Other Songs from the Era: 

• They Killed Him/The Three Bells – a single-only release produced by Chips unlike anything else in Cash’s catalogue. The a-side is  powerful Kristofferson number about the legacy of Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Jesus Christ. Heavy stuff, but like Rainbow, delivered over a keyboard-heavy pop backing. The b-side is an update of Edith Piaf’s Les Trois Cloches (translated into English in the 1950s). This one is piano-driven, and a captivating string of vignettes that capture a life in three minutes. An interesting single, but I’m not sure who thought these two would light up the charts. Available on Singles Plus. 
• Christmas on the Road – Johnny’s 1984 Christmas special, recorded in the middle of these sessions in Montreux, Switzerland. This is really the birthplace of The Highwaymen as it features Johnny, Waylon, Kris and Willie singing On the Road Again. Jessi Colter also guests as does John Carter Cash. Note – Johnny was still singing The Chicken in Black at this time, so hadn’t totally disowned it! 
• I Will Dance with You – Recorded in early 1985, Karen Brooks released a duet version of this late 70s Cash gem on her 1986 album of the same name. Marty Stuart would also release a solo album in 1986 including a cover of one of Brooks’ tunes. By the end of 1986, Marty would leave Cash’s band to pursue his solo career.
• Be Careful Who You Love – Johnny guested on this Waylon tune on his Sweet Mother Texas album. This sets the stage for their upcoming duet album, Heroes.