The Highwaymen were much more than a collective of great country artists. They were friends who all shared the same vision for the genre and for the world. Oftentimes, their ideals of the world socially and personally would line up, making them thick as thieves. Between Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings, they all made some of the greatest music in country music history. Kris Kristofferson was especially vocal about one of the group members in particular before he passed away.
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Back in 2010, Rolling Stone published a list of the greatest artists of all time. However, the catch was that it would be other artists and producers writing about their contemporaries and legends of their industry. For Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash was the the country artist to follow, the closest thing to a god amongst men. "Johnny Cash was a biblical character. He was like some old preacher, one of those dangerous old wild ones. He was like a hero you'd see in a Western, a giant. And he never lost that stature. I don't think we'll see anyone like him again," Kris writes at the time.
Kris Kristofferson Christens Johnny Cash as The Greatest of All Time for Rolling Stone
Then, Kris highlights his first memory hearing Johnny Cash and how he immediately distinguished himself from the rest of the pack. "Of course, the first thing he'll be remembered for is the power and originality of his music. The first time I heard Johnny Cash was when he released "I Walk the Line" in 1956. It was unlike anything I'd ever heard," Kristofferson recalls.
"Elvis had had a lot of hits by that point, but "I Walk the Line" was completely different. It didn't sound much like any of the country music that was popular at the time, either. There was always a kind of dark energy around John and his music. My first hero, when I was a kid, was Hank Williams, and he had a similar energy. You could tell they were both wild men," Kristofferson continues.
Aside from the act of performing and recording itself, Kris highlights what truly made Johnny Cash special from his contemporaries. "The main thing about John, though — the thing that everybody could sense — was his integrity," Kristofferson emphasizes. "The integrity of his relationship with his music, with his life and with other people. He stood up for Bob Dylan when everyone in the music business was criticizing Dylan for going electric. And he did the same for me, in the Eighties, when I was taking a lot of criticism for going down to Nicaragua. That's the kind of guy he always was. He stood up for the underdog."
