Country music peaked with The Highwaymen…
Of course, they’re the country supergroup consisting of the genres most well-known outlaws, including Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson.
And back in 1990, they held a special concert called American Outlaws: Live at Nassau Coliseum, where they joined forces to sing some of their biggest hits and most iconic songs.
From Johnny’s “Ring of Fire,” Willie’s “Always On My Mind,” Waylon’s “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way,” and Kris’ “Help Me Make It Through The Night,” it was surely a helluva a show and something we’ll unfortunately never get to witness again, seeing as half of the band in Johnny and Waylon have since passed on.
But luckily for all of us, they filmed the entire show, and it’s all done with extremely high-quality video and great audio we can still enjoy today.
They sang one of my favorite’s from Willie and Waylon that night, “Good Hearted Woman,” and it’s pretty damn epic, for lack of a better word.
Waylon first recorded the song as the title track for his 1972 album, Good Hearted Woman, where it peaked at #3 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles chart.
In 1975, he remixed the song and added vocals from Willie, as well as fake crowd noise, to give it a live feel for their iconic Wanted: The Outlaws! album. That version went #1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles chart in 1976.
The iconic duo wrote it together in 1969 in a motel room in Fort Worth, Texas, during a poker game. Waylon was reading an ad about Ike and Tina Turner, and it mentioned how a lot of her songs were about good-hearted women loving two-timing men, which first inspired the idea. They pulled from a lot of their own, real-life experiences with their wives, as well.
Willie actually only wrote two lines of the song, but received half of all the royalties that they originally agreed upon, which is cool because it goes to show just how good of a man Waylon really was at heart… even with the bad boy, outlaw image he maintained throughout his career.
It’s almost hard to think of words to describe how incredible it is to see all four of these legends on stage together. And I mean, let’s be honest…
Is there a more fitting song for them to sing, either?
Ya gotta love it:
