The Highwaymen (folk Band) - Career

Career

As a freshman in 1958, Dave Fisher, who in high school had sung in a doo-wop group, joined with four other Wesleyan freshman – Bob Burnett, Steve Butts, Chan Daniels, and Steve Trott – to form the Highwaymen. Fisher, who would graduate in 1962 with the university’s first degree in Ethnomusicology, was the quintet's arranger and lead singer. In 1959, United Artists released his arrangement of the spiritual "Michael, Row the Boat Ashore" while the group were sophomores in college. The recording reached #1 in the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1961 under the abbreviated title of "Michael", earning the quintet the gold record. The single also reached #1 in UK and #4 in Germany. Later members were Gil Robbins (father of actor Tim Robbins), who joined in 1962 when Steve Trott entered Harvard Law School, and classical guitarist Johann Helton. Today, just two of the original five members, Steve Trott and Steve Butts, are still alive, with Daniels having died in 1975, Fisher in 2010, Robbins on April 5, 2011 and Burnett the following December. Ten albums have been recorded to date.

The group broke up in 1964, after eight albums and ten singles, an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and three appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show. With Dave Fisher as musical director and the only remaining member of the original quintet, the Highwaymen continued for another three years with new members Renny Temple, Roy Connors, Mose Henry and Alan Scharf, who for a brief time and one album, had gone under the name of Alan Shaw. They recorded two albums and performed countless concerts and television shows. Temple, Connors and Henry were previously in a popular Florida folk group called the Vikings Three. Alan Scharf had an earlier career as an actor which continued after the Highwaymen disbanded. He went on to do small roles in a few movies including the cult classic Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and about 100 national, regional and local commercials. He continued his singing as a cantor in the prestigious Congregation Beth El, a conservative synagogue in La Jolla, California. Roy Connors became an advertising executive and formed his own ad agency writing jingles and performing in a number of commercials. After many years of loss of contact, Scharf and Connors reconnected in southern Florida, forming a duo called 2Guys, singing many of the folk songs they sang as members of The Highwaymen. More information on Roy and Alan can be found at their web site: 2guysharmony.com.

The original Highwaymen, minus Daniels (who died in 1975), reunited in 1987 for a concert for their 25th college reunion. Since that time, the band has performed ten to twelve concerts a year. The group last performed in August 2009 in Massachusetts. The rock and roll magazine Blitz described the Highwaymen’s record of their 1963 concert at Massachusetts Institute of Technology as the best compilation or reissue of 2009. Blitz also named the band's album When the Village Was Green one of the best releases of 2007. In 1990, the group sued country music's Highwaymen, made up of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson over their use of the name, which was inspired by a Jimmy Webb ballad they recorded. The suit was dropped after the foursome agreed to let members of the original group open for them at a 1990 concert in Hollywood.

Of the original quintet from Wesleyan (all of whom made the Dean's List), one attended Harvard Business School, two attended Harvard Law School, and one attended graduate school at Columbia University, then proceeded into business, law, and academia, respectively. Fisher alone stayed in the music business. After the second incarnation of the Highwaymen, Fisher traveled to Hollywood where he composed and arranged music for films and television and worked as a studio singer and musician. He wrote more than a thousand songs, many of which have been used in movie and television productions. After serving in the Army Reserve, Burnett graduated from Harvard Law School in 1967 and "went on to a long career in law and banking." Chan Daniels (who died in 1975) had been an executive for Capitol Records. Steve Butts received a Ph.D. in Chinese Politics from Columbia, and until retirement, had served as an academic administrator at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Grinnell College and Lawrence University. He also taught baroque music performance and statistics at Columbia and the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music. Steve Trott, after graduating from Harvard Law, became a prosecutor in the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office. Later, he served in the United States Department of Justice during the Presidency of Ronald Reagan and in 1987 was appointed a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Fisher died on May 7, 2010, at the age of 69.

Bob Burnett died of brain cancer on December 8, 2011 at his home in East Providence, Rhode Island. He was 71.