The Highwomen is an American country music supergroup. In 2016, when Amanda Shires was finishing her record My Piece of Land in music producer Dave Cobb’s studio, Shires had an idea to create a female country supergroup in homage to the legendary Highwaymen country supergroup (consisting of Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson). At the same time, the lack of representation of women artists on country music radio and at country music festivals had been publicly discussed by many, influenced by the Me Too Movement and journalists like Marissa Moss. Shires called Brandi Carlile, whom she didn’t know. Carlile thought it would be fun, and would be an interesting creative project.
The Highwomen project was widely hinted at by Carlile, Maren Morris and Shires before it was officially announced in April 2019. With the name paying homage to The Highwaymen, the Highwomen were originally intended to leave the fourth spot in their line-up vacant to allow other female collaborators to join them. The group made their live debut in April 2019 at Loretta Lynn’s 87th birthday concert held at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. There, Natalie Hemby was officially revealed as the final member.
In July 2019, the Highwomen performed their first ever full live set at the 60th annual Newport Folk Festival, previewing songs from their upcoming album including “If She Ever Leaves Me”, written by Shires, her husband Jason Isbell and Chris Thompkins. With Carlile on lead vocals, Isbell described it as “the first gay country song” which elicited applause from the audience.
Their cover of “The Chain” by Fleetwood Mac from the soundtrack of the movie The Kitchen debuted during the film’s first trailer and was officially released in August 2019. The title track of their self-titled debut album was released in August 2019. Written by Carlile and Shires with Jimmy Webb, the original writer of “Highwaymen”, the track that originally inspired the Highwomen’s formation, it tells the story of various women throughout history and features guest vocals from British country soul singer Yola Carter and backing vocals from Sheryl Crow. The song is a classic answer song.
The band recorded 15 songs, but only 12 tracks made it on the album. Many of the songs flip gender roles, with additions of characters like refugee, preacher, Freedom Rider, and a healer, compared to the characters drawn by the Highwaymen songs. Following the release of their album, the band have infrequently performed together. In 2022, they performed at the Kennedy Centre Honours in tribute to Amy Grant, who was one of the honuorees. They also performed “Coal Miner’s Daughter” during a tribute show on CMT following the death of Loretta Lynn, with Brittney Spencer standing in for Morris.
