This is guaranteed to ruffle some feathers. People are incredibly touchy about The Highwaymen. For a lot of people, it doesn't even matter that their politics drastically differs from their own. There are countless classics between Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings. So for country exile Maren Morris to compare herself to them, she welcomes the potential for backlash.
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However, she's not exactly wrong when she actually explains it. Recently, Morris appeared on the Zach Sang Show podcast to promote her latest album DREAMSICLE. There, the host asks her why she decided to go against the "beliefs and standards" of country. It's a pretty presumptuous way of framing that question, to prop bigotry on the entirety of the Nashville industry. But it's not totally incorrect, given the many stories over the years. Maren addresses this by naming artists that represented the same issues she stands for today.
Maren Morris Puts Herself in The Same Ballpark as The Highwaymen
"I went back to where country music was, which is, you see interviews of Johnny Cash, or the Highwaymen with Willie and Kristofferson, it's just like... Kristofferson was a war veteran, so he's talking abut veteran rights, veteran care. I mean, they're talking about public education, they're talking about homelessness. These are the outlaws these people at their festivals have on a screen T-shirt," Maren explains.
"Like, were you listening to them talk? Or are you just listening to 'Boy Named Sue?' I wasn't diverting from country music, I was touting what made me fall in love with it, which was reality and human stories through really clever storytelling and lyrical structure and heart and soulfulness in that vocal. There's so much warmth in country music, and I fell in love with it," Maren continues. "They were all pushing the boundaries, and advocating for minorities and marginalized communities, that was my country music. I don't know where it changed, but I wasn't anti-anything in it. I was anti-homophobia and bigotry."
Maren Morris is clearly not trying to name names as to who goes against this grain. But you can do a brief scan of modern country music and see the references. Morgan Wallen and his racial slur controversy. Jason Aldean's "Try That in a Small Town" and the handful of vocal Trump supporters in country. Nashville had a pretty glaring problem with propping up female stars before it went into overdrive with fresh names. For every Sturgill Simpson and Dolly Parton, there are still problematic aspects that lie in the genre.
Loving country does involve grappling with some of its thornier issues. So in that case, Maren is right. But to be very clear, she's certainly no Willie Nelson or Kris Kristofferson. I would think she would say the same.
