In the mid-‘70s, filmmaker James Szalapski documented the then-nascent country music movement that would become known as “outlaw country.” Inspired, in part, by newly-long-haired Willie Nelson’s embrace of hippie attitudes and audiences, a younger generation of artists including Townes Van Zandt, David Allan Coe, Steve Earle and Guy Clark popularized and developed the outlaw sound. It borrowed from rock, folk and bluegrass, with an edge that was missing from mainstream Nashville country. This newly-restored documentary includes rarely-captured performances of the aforementioned musicians as they perfected this then-new style and helped change the course of country music history.

An essential artifact and document of that scene and sound is filmmaker James Szalapski's long-inaccessible documentary Heartworn Highways, a film with as much of a devoted cult as the music itself.
Nadine Smith
Nashville Scene

HEARTWORN HIGHWAYS fell in line with the great hangout movies of the past 50 years when authority started to lose its power and a few moments of creativity was worth more than its weight in gold.
James Clay
Fresh Fiction