The Highwaymen’s Dave Fisher Exits for the Last Time

Dave Fisher, a member of the 1960s folk group The Highwaymen and a resident of Rye's Newberry Place, died earlier this month at his home in Rye. The New York Times carried an extensive obituary, saying:

"Dave Fisher, who in 1958 joined with four other freshmen at Wesleyan University to form the Highwaymen, one of the most popular, and improbable, folk music groups of the early 1960s, died on Friday at his home in Rye, N.Y. He was 69…

…The originals, who had reunited in 1987 for a concert at their 25th college reunion, had begun toying with the idea of playing together occasionally again. So they jumped at the offer… In their second life the Highwaymen issued five more CDs. Blitz, the rock ’n’ roll magazine, called their album “When the Village Was Green” one of the best releases of 2007…

“When he got on stage, it was like he dropped 15 years and every ailment,” Richard E. Noble, author of a book on the Highwaymen, “Number #1,” said in an interview on Monday. “He was one of the great tenors of folk music, no question about it.”"

Allmusic.com describes the impact of the band in the 1960s: "Their kind of harmony singing, coupled with traditional songs and ballads, has seldom been written of in the decades since their heyday. What's more, their late-'50s collegiate origins, as a quintet whose purpose was to foster entertainment more than to raise consciousness, belonged more to the setting of the hootenanny than the anti-war teach-in or the political rally. They stand alongside the Kingston Trio, the Chad Mitchell Trio, the New Christie Minstrels, the Serendipity Singers, and the Brothers Four on the losing side of the early-'60s battle between the folk-pop acts and the more confrontational and politically oriented species of folk singer represented by Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, and Tom Rush. But the Highwaymen did have a major impact on the folk scene of the early '60s."

You can listen to music from The Highwaymen on Pandora.