NEWPORT, R.I. — The Highwomen’s first-ever public performance went off so well at the Newport Folk Festival in July that Nashville’s newest supergroup repeated its laid-back, harmony-rich lead single, “Redesigning Women,” as an encore.

A standing ovation was inevitable: The audience had been on its feet before the quartet stepped onstage.

The only snafu was a failed plan to give festivalgoers free tattoos that said “Highwomen” in the same jagged scrawl already emblazoned on band members Brandi Carlile and Amanda Shires — as well as Jason Isbell, Shires’s husband and the group’s guitarist; Shires’s mother and other musicians and friends.

Rhode Island’s health department wouldn’t give the band a permit unless it restricted the ink to the festival’s V.I.P. area.

“That’s so class divided,” Carlile, 38, said the next morning over a plate of bacon and greens, shaking her head as her bandmates brainstormed ways to share the logo online so fans could get their own tattoos. “Way off message.”

The Highwomen — Carlile, Shires, Natalie Hemby and Maren Morris — proudly call themselves a movement as much as a band, one whose mission is clear: solidarity, specifically with other women in country music. Their self-titled debut album is out Friday.

Hear the Highwomen:

Individually, they’ve all found success:

The breakout star Maren Morris (of the pop smash “The Middle”) earned her second country radio No. 1, “Girl,” the day after the Newport performance.

Natalie Hemby, one of Nashville’s most sought-after songwriters, recently had two credits on the soundtrack for “A Star Is Born.”

Brandi Carlile is a veteran singer-songwriter who just won her first three Grammys, including best Americana album, for “By the Way, I Forgive You.” (Hemby calls her “Grammy Carlile.”)

Amanda Shires, a vocalist and violinist, has been a cornerstone of Americana music since first playing with the Texas Playboys at 15.

But together, they’ve decided, they’re better — especially when it comes to confronting the daunting task of helping women succeed as artists in country.

The genre has a stark gender imbalance.

“It’s the eternal question that no one’s figured out,” said Morris, 29, picking at eggs Benedict … Read more.

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