Highwaymen folk singer Bob Burnett dies

The members of the folk group the Highwaymen were freshmen in the same fraternity at Wesleyan University in Connecticut when they came together to perform at a campus party in 1958.

By their senior year, the quintet had a No. 1 single with their haunting version of the African-American spiritual "Michael, Row the Boat Ashore."

Although the group had a significant impact on the folk scene in the early 1960s, the Highwaymen disbanded in 1964 when Bob Burnett and two other members decided to attend graduate school.

Burnett, the guitar-playing tenor who became a lawyer, died Wednesday at his home in East Providence, R.I. His family said he had a brain tumor. He was 71.

The Highwaymen regularly performed in Greenwich Village at the height of the folk scene and recorded eight albums. The other founding members were Chan Daniels, who died in 1975; Steve Butts, who became an academic administrator at the college level; and Steve Trott, who became a judge for the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

After graduating from Harvard Law School, Burnett worked as a trusts lawyer for several banks before retiring from Bank of America.

He temporarily left the Highwaymen in 1962 to serve in the Army. At basic training in Fort Dix, N.J., he met the colonel's daughter, Kathleen Cullis; they married in 1964.

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In addition to his wife, Burnett is survived by a son and two daughters. Los Angeles Times