The Highwaymen: On the Road Again

It's funny how people suddenly take an interest in an artist once he or she is dead. That being the case, this first DVD release from the country supergroup the Highwaymen should be a biggie, since both Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash have recently passed on to their great reward. Even if this 1992 concert in Aberdeen, Scotland doesn't exactly find them in peak form, it's still cool to see them all together: Cash, Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson were quite a team. Less a group performance than a revue, with each of the four grizzled veterans strutting his stuff with some help from the others, the program serves up a veritable cavalcade of hits: “Folsom Prison Blues” from Cash, “Crazy” and “On the Road Again” from Nelson, “Me and Bobby McGee” and “Help Me Make It Through the Night” from Kristofferson, “Luckenbach, Texas” from Jennings, and so on. Truth be told, the sparks don't exactly fly. Willie's in by far the best shape of the four, musically speaking; Kristofferson has never been much of a singer anyway, and the other two were past their primes (Cash, remember, had been part of Sun Records' Million Dollar Quartet with Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis almost four decades earlier). OK, so this relaxed, good-natured show doesn't rank as a must-have, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth a look and a listen (in decent Dolby Digital stereo sound), even if only as a record of a lineup we'll never see again. A strong optional purchase. Aud: P. (S. Graham)