The Highwomen’s Joyful Country-Music Rewrites
The supergroup puts a feminist spin on familiar traditions while still maintaining a classic feel.
In the 1985 hit version of “Highwayman,” four great country outlaws boldly went where no cowboy had gone before. Willie Nelson sang about a stagecoach robber who was hanged, Kris Kristofferson about a sailor lost at sea, and Waylon Jennings about a dam builder who slipped on the job. To this list of rugged and doomed workmen, Johnny Cash added … an astronaut. “I fly a star-ship across the universe divide,” he said in his signature boom, connecting the American West with the
