Dave Fisher born July 19, 1940

Dave Fisher (July 19, 1940 - May 7, 2010) was the lead singer, guitarist and musical director of the US folk group the Highwaymen, who enjoyed chart success in 1961 with the songs Michael, Row the Boat Ashore and The Gypsy Rover.  The group veered towards the entertainment wing of the folk boom in early 1960s America, featuring few politically radical songs. They therefore failed to survive the change in popular music during the British invasion of pop groups led by the Beatles. In any case, group members were anxious to pursue other careers, although Fisher continued to work in the music industry. For two decades, with Fisher at the helm, the Highwaymen enjoyed regular reunion concerts.

The Academics

David Louis Fisher was born in New Haven, Connecticut, and at Hillhouse High school sang with a doo-wop group, the Academics. In 1958, at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, he formed a folk music group, the Clansmen, with fellow students Bob Burnett, Steve Butts, Chan Daniels and Steve Trott. By the following year, they had a recording contract from United Artists and a manager, Ken Greengrass, who suggested a change in name. The youngsters had been unaware of the political implications of a name that appeared to ally them with the Ku Klux Klan, and a new name, the Highwaymen, was chosen, after the title of a 1906 poem by Alfred Noyes.

                                   

Their eponymous first album was released in 1960, but sold few copies. A similar fate befell a single, Santiano, and United Artists dropped the group. But an independent distributor in Connecticut pushed the single's B side, Michael, Row the Boat Ashore, renamed simply Michael, and persuaded radio DJs to play it. By the summer of 1961, it had reached No 1 in the US, Britain and 20 other countries. The song was an African-American spiritual, first recorded by Bob Gibson, and then by the Weavers, but it was the Highwaymen's version, arranged by Fisher, that really popularised the song.

Clockwise top to bottom: Steve Trott,
Chan Daniels, Bob Burnett,  Dave Fisher
& Steve Butts

Three appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show on US network television and a second album, Standing Room Only, followed. The single The Gypsy Rover was also successful, both in the US and Britain, and they also achieved success with the B side, Cotton Fields, which rescued a Lead Belly song from oblivion; as a result, both the Beach Boys and Creedence Clearwater Revival covered the song.

At the time, concerts by the Highwaymen could take place only at weekends and vacations because they were still students. After graduation in 1962, they moved to Greenwich Village, New York, where they had a residency at the Gaslight Cafe. Their album from that time, One More Time, included the first recording of Buffy Sainte-Marie's Universal Soldier, later a hit for Donovan. Throughout their career, Fisher was the Highwaymen's main musical inspiration. He chose the songs, arranged them and, with a great tenor voice, was the lead singer. The other members had ambitions outside music – one of them, Steve Trott, became a federal appeals court judge, and in 1964, the Highwaymen disbanded, amicably.

With a new line-up, Fisher launched a folk trio using the same name, with himself as musical director, but he did not sing in the group. His own recordings were not a success, but after moving to Los Angeles he developed a career as a composer and arranger for films and television, including the TV series The Fall Guy, and as a studio singer and musician. He worked together with Bert Knapp, Don Costa, Glen Larson and Wayne Hagstrom aka A.B. Clyde. 

In 1990, a country music band featuring Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson called themselves the Highwaymen. Led by Trott, the original Highwaymen sued for copyright infringement, and the settlement included the original group playing support for the supergroup in Los Angeles. They had already sung at a college reunion in 1987, and this led to a touring schedule where they performed 10-12 concerts a year. In 1998 Dave married his college sweetheart Dr. Elaine Haagen and moved to Rye, New York, where they enjoyed both the New York Yankees and the cultural highlights of New York City. In their second life, the Highwaymen issued five more CDs. Fisher's solo album, Love's Way, was released in 2002. The band recorded their final studio album "The Water of Life: A Celtic Collection" in 2004 and self released two live LP's "In Concert" (2002) and "When The Village Was Green" (2007). 

They last performed together in August 2009, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts at the Guthrie Centre. Dave Fisher died May 7, 2010, at his home in Rye, N.Y. He was 69. The cause was due to the bone marrow disease myelofibrosis. Richard E. Noble, author of a book on the Highwaymen, “Number #1,” said in an interview “When he got on stage, it was like he dropped 15 years and every ailment. He was one of the great tenors of folk music, no question about it." 

Before he died Fisher was working on a book based on his and Bert Knapp's vocal training technique, also the group had been discussing a number of projects, including a PBS special and a Woodstock-like show with other performing artists. A memorial service was held in June 13 at the Clear View School in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., a treatment centre for children with emotional and mental illness where Fisher served on the board of directors.

(Edited from obit by Derek Schofield @ The Guardian, Music Museum of New England & The Highwaymen website)