by Will Hermes: Supergroup of Brandi Carlile, Maren Morris, Amanda Shires, and Natalie Hemby artfully engage social issues on self-titled LP…

Awaken

I was a HighwomanAnd a mother from my youthFor my children I did what I had to doMy family left Honduras when they killed the SandinistasWe followed a coyote through the dust of MexicoEvery one of them except for me survivedAnd I am still alive
I was a healerI was gifted as a girlI laid hands upon the worldSomeone saw me sleeping naked in the noon sunI heard “witchcraft” in the whispers and I knew my time had comeThe bastards hung me at the Salem gallows hillBut I am living still
I was a freedom riderWhen we thought the South had wonVirginia in the spring of ’61I sat down on the Greyhound that was bound for MississippiMy mother asked me if that ride was worth my lifeAnd when the shots rang out I never heard the soundBut I am still around
And I’ll take that ride againAnd againAnd againAnd againAnd again
I was a preacherMy heart broke for all the worldBut teaching was unrighteous for a girlIn the summer I was baptized in the mighty ColoradoIn the winter I heard the hounds and I knew I had been foundAnd in my Savior’s name, I laid my weapons downBut I am still around
We are The HighwomenSinging stories still untoldWe carry the sons you can only holdWe are the daughters of the silent generationsYou sent our hearts to die alone in foreign nationsIt may return to us as tiny drops of rainBut we will still remain
And we’ll come back again and again and againAnd again and againWe’ll come back again and again and againAnd again and again

The Highwomen come steeped in history — a history they rewrite, literally and figuratively. Their name, and the title track of their terrific self-titled debut, alludes to “The Highwayman,” Jimmy Webb’s 1977 song-turned-hit signature of the Highwaymen, the Eighties supergroup of Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson. Rewritten with Webb for a new singer-songwriting collective —

What’s most impressive about The Highwomen, handsomely produced with Nashville neoclassicist Dave Cobb, is how artfully, and matter-of-factly, it engages social issues. Credit the concentration of songwriting talent. Every woman here is at the top of her game. With last year’s By the Way, I Forgive You, Carlile reached a new creative peak after 13 years of record-making. Morris is a boundary-breaking pop-country hit machine. Shires is a fiddle virtuoso and genre-agnostic singer-songwriter (see last year’s To the Sunset). The semi-secret weapon is Natalie Hemby, who’s made her name as an A-list Music Row writer with serious range — she co-wrote three songs on Kacey Musgraves’ 2018 masterpiece, Golden Hour, and 10 on Miranda Lambert’s landmark The Weight of These Wings. Hemby’s got a stoner-friendly wit that loves wordplay; see “Redesigning Women,” an anthem that nods to the Eighties Southern-ladies-in-business sitcom Designing Women. See also “My Only Child,” a nuanced tear-jerker penned with Lambert and Shires that’s full of sharp details (“Pink painted walls/Your face in my locket/Your daddy and me/Your tiny back pocket”).

The writing’s distributed equitably, and not every song goes for profundity. “Don’t Call Me,” a Shires co-write, is a sassy kiss-off to a leech. Morris similarly boots an unappreciative partner on “Loose Change,” and joins Carlile and Shires to claim a maternal flex day on “My Name Can’t Be Mama.” But even the playful songs have gravitas. “If She Ever Leaves Me,” penned by Shires, husband Jason Isbell, and Chris Tompkins (co-writer of Carrie Underwood’s monster hit “Before He Cheats”), is a queer honky-tonk ballad delivered by Carlile, who advises a hot-to-trot cowboy to back off from her lover. “That’s too much cologne,” she tells him evenly, “She likes perfume.”  It’s plain-spoken enough to make heteronormativity seem abnormal, just as the album makes anything short of equal representation feel like both a lie, and a squandered resource.

The writing’s distributed equitably, and not every song goes for profundity. “Don’t Call Me,” a Shires co-write, is a sassy kiss-off to a leech. Morris similarly boots an unappreciative partner on “Loose Change,” and joins Carlile and Shires to claim a maternal flex day on “My Name Can’t Be Mama.” But even the playful songs have gravitas. “If She Ever Leaves Me,” penned by Shires, husband Jason Isbell, and Chris Tompkins (co-writer of Carrie Underwood’s monster hit “Before He Cheats”), is a queer honky-tonk ballad delivered by Carlile, who advises a hot-to-trot cowboy to back off from her lover. “That’s too much cologne,” she tells him evenly, “She likes perfume.”  It’s plain-spoken enough to make heteronormativity seem abnormal, just as the album makes anything short of equal representation feel like both a lie, and a squandered resource.

Source: Rolling Stone