Four current country music superstars have formed a supergroup, but this is not the first time this has happened in the genre. Jason Aldean is part of the contemporary group and discusses what they are doing.
Back in the 1980s country music legends pictured on the right (L-R) Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson came together to form a group they called the Highwaymen. The group released three albums together. The debut album Highwayman hit #1 on the country album sales chart and was certified Platinum. The second album from the group Highwayman 2 was certified Gold. The third album was originally released as The Road Goes On Forever, but is now listed as Highwaymen.
The debut single from the country music supergroup was the title track from the debut album and reached #1 on the country radio airplay chart. They released six more singles with one making top 15 and another reaching #25 on the charts.
Step forward to today and Darius Rucker, Luke Bryan, Lady Antebellum‘s Charles Kelley and Jason Aldean seem to following in the footsteps of those country music icons forming a supergroup they call the Troublemakers. The four stars have recorded a song called “Straight To Hell.” They recorded a music video for the song (you can watch it here) and even performed it live together on the 2018 CMT Music Awards (you can watch it here). The song has already hit the Billboard Country Radio Airplay singles chart at #60 for this week.
I will again pose the question in the title of this blog, are the Troublemakers the new Highwaymen?
Recently the comparison was brought up to Jason Aldean.
“It’s like a super band kind of thing, I guess, if you want to call it that,” he shared, “It’s kind of like this was the one thing we did.”
He wasn’t ready to commit to more music coming from the Troublemakers or shoot down the idea either.
“We’ve had a lot of ideas sort of floating around that we kind of throw back and forth and right now, it’s stuff that we’re kind of talking about,” Jason states, “But, we’re all kind of going in different directions doing our thing.”
The song “Straight To Hell” can be found on Darius Rucker’s current album When Was The Last Time that is available digitally and in music stores everywhere now.
Will there be another song from the Troublemakers down the road on another member’s album? Will there be a full album released by the Troublemakers? Are the Troublemakers a modern version of the Highwaymen? Time will tell, but I really hope so.
By: Buck Stevens
