Title: The Highwaymen Live: American Outlaws
Release year: 1990
Genre: Country, Country Pop, Country Rock, Progressive Country, Traditional Country, Outlaw Country, Honky Tonk
Director: Jon Small
Artist: Nelson - vocals, guitar; Johnny Cash - vocals, guitar; Waylon Jennings - vocals, guitar; Kris Kristofferson - vocals, guitar; Gene Chrisman - drums; J.R. Cobb - guitar; Bobby Emmons - keyboards; Mike Leech - bass; Mickey Raphael - harmonica; Danny Timms - keyboards, vocals; Robby Turner - pedal steel; Bobby Wood - keyboards, vocals; Reggie Young - guitar

Description:

The Highwaymen - Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson - were the country's music first bonafide "supergroup," an epic quartet of blockbuster star power comprised of the four prime forces of America's outlaw country music revolution. An essential musical and cultural influence, the Highwayman, which was won by the Best Country Song Grammy Award in 1986, A variety of shows, mythic status for those lucky enough to have been there.

"There's the four of us standing there, grouped around the microphones." The Highwaymen. "John, Kris, Willie, and me. I do not think there are any other four people like us," wrote Waylon Jennings in Waylon: An Autobiography. "John says that we came together because we all have a life commitment to the music." We know the same songs, but we sing them from different perspectives. "We can blend the early car of the family with Texas swing, southern gospel, and Rockabilly, and each of us feels comfortable singing real slices of life. There's not one of us who has not come face to face with his own mortality, and many of the time we've gone through our struggles and survivals together .... That's our friendship, unlocking any door that is between us, and it keeps four very different individuals together. "

Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson first performed as the Highwaymen in 1985, after which they became a going concern for the next decade. Hits did not often arrive - their 1985 debut reached the top of the Billboard's Country Album and the title track achieved the same feat on the singles chart - but they became a reliable concert after the release of Highwayman 2 in 1990. The 2016 archival release of Live: American Outlaws is the first official document of this part of the supergroup's life, providing the first-ever CD release of the March 14, 1990, which was previously released on VHS in 1991 (the video Part by a third CD featuring a six-song set from 1992's Farm Aid V, four songs from 1993's Farm Aid VI, and a spruc-up outtake of Bob Dylan's "One Too Many Mornings, "where Nelson and Kristofferson added new vocal harmonies to the recording of Cash and Jennings' 1986 LP Heroes.
While the Nassau gig was meant for home video release, the Farm Aid gigs were high-profile charity shows. Considering this, it's the odd how none of the three live dates. All are matter-of-fact performances, the four Highwaymen are relying on some measure of seasoned chops and personal charm as they are trade songs, or perhaps just lines, on a collection of the greatest-hits and new tunes they're plugging. The latter is served as an excuse to get the band out on the road and they are fade into the woodwork here, overshadowed by a collection of tunes that amount to some of the greatest songs of the 20th century. None of the renditions here are anywhere close to definitive - the Highwaymen wear their age on their sleeves a bit, plus the productions are slick and overblown in the manner of the standard to the big-budget shows the '80s and' 90s - but something That would have happened as little more than an enjoyable night out in 1990 now seems like something modestly special. Hearing these four Titans is an on-stage, harmonizing and cracking wise, it's hard not to marvel at the fact that for a while, Jennings, Nelson, Cash, and Kristofferson actually roamed from town to town, singing their songs along the way. This is a simple document of that time that seems more momentous now that the era has passed. --AllMusic Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Tracklist:
• Live At Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, New York, March 14, 1990
01. Intro / Opening Credits
02. Highwaymen
03. Mamas Do not Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys
04. Good Hearted Woman
05. Trouble Man
06. Amanda
07. There Is not No Good Chain Gang
08. Ring Of Fire
09. Folsom Prison Blues
10. Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain
11. Sunday Morning Coming Down
12. Help Me Make It Through The Night
13. The Best Of All Possible Worlds
14. Loving Her Was Easier
15 .City Of New Orleans
16. Always On My Mind
17. Me And Bobby McGee
18. Silver Stallion
19. The Last Cowboy Song
20. Two Stories Wide
21. Living Legend
22. The Pilgrim: Chapter 33
23. They Killed Him
24. I Still Miss Someone
25. Ragged Old Flag
26. Ghost Riders In The Sky
27. Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way
28. Night Life
29. The King Is Gone (So Are You)
30. Desperados Waiting For A Train
31. Big River
32. A Boy Named Sue
33. Why Me
34. Luckenbach, Texas
35. On The Road Again
36. Closing Credits

Issued: United States | Sony Music
Duration: 2:05:39 + 00:32:34