Product Description

No Description Available
No Track Information Available
Media Type: CD
Artist: NELSON,WILLIE
Title: STARDUST
Street Release Date: 10/19/1999
Domestic
Genre: COUNTRY

Track Listing

1. Stardust
2. Georgia on My Mind
3. Blue Skies
4. All of Me
5. Unchained Melody
6. September Song
7. On the Sunny Side of the Street
8. Moonlight in Vermont
9. Don't Get Around Much Anymore
10. Someone to Watch over Me
11. Scarlett Ribbons [*]
12. I Can See Clearly Now [*]

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2046 in Music
• Brand: NELSON,WILLIE
• Released on: 1999-10-19
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Extra tracks, Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
• Dimensions: .22 pounds

Amazon.com essential recording
Willie Nelson has never been one to do the safe or expected, and this Booker T. Jones-produced album of pop standards from the '30s and '40s certainly fits the profile. It's also one of the better albums of Nelson's career, allowing Willie to dip his fragile, quivering tenor all around the beat in songs like "All of Me" and "Unchained Melody." Jones's organ, piano, and string arrangements are low-key and swinging (except on the almost wooden "On the Sunny Side of the Street"), and Nelson's vocals on "Georgia on My Mind" and "Moonlight in Vermont" are filled with a dignified and slightly jazzy country soul. The 1999 reissue adds a pair of bonus cuts to the mix, including the lullaby-like "Scarlet Ribbons" and the somewhat out-of-place "I Can See Clearly Now." --David Cantwell

Customer Reviews

Willie Nelson Shines Bright on STARDUST
Over the last few years we've been bombarded with one unnecessary CD that remakes American standards after another. Ughh! I can only think of two artists who honor these songs while still making contemporary albums: Steve Tyrell's A NEW STANDARD and, best of all, Willie Nelson's STARDUST. Re-discovering this album, complete with two new tracks, is a joy. Of the many great albums that Willie Nelson has recorded, this one is my favorite. It sounds just as good today as it did twenty years ago, and I suspect it will sound the same in another twenty years. I am living proof that you don't have to listen to standards on a regular basis - if ever - to love this album. STARDUST is an absolute gem that gets better every time you play it. Bravo, Willie!

Super songs by a subtle, super singer...
On this record, Willie proved that his favorite items from "The Great American Songbook" were good enough to survive his distinctive phrasing and country/blues accompaniment organized by his buddy, Booker T., the producer. Mostly mellow, this album gives you 45 minutes of quiet pleasure. The songs were designed for pop, jazz or Broadway treatments, but Willie proved he could do them justice in his own sweet way. I had a boss who purchased this one when it came out in 1978 or so, and played it for me one day. I was barely conscious of Willie back then, but I knew the material from more traditional renditions. While I did not rush out to buy this at the time, it was because it was a tight budget year, not because I didn't like it. Now I've just acquired it, 25 years on, yet both Willie and the songs survive. If you like Nelson, this CD is one of the essentials. If you like "The Great American Songbook" this version of some of the best from that body of work is also essential. Here, Willie invented a style that melds jazz, pop, country, folk, blues and Broadway. Play "Red-Headed Stranger" and follow it with this one, and you have all the evidence one needs that Mr. Nelson is an immortal in the roster of great American music-makers.

Shockingly wonderful
I'll grant that at first sight this seems like a doomed project - a non-jazz figure tackling songs that are now entrenched in the jazz canon.

However, one must recall that these tunes, from the Tin Pan Alley tradition, initially were not considered jazz. It strikes me that Nelson approached them with this understanding.

Georgia on My Mind, and Moonlight in Vermont become subtle, gentle country-tinged ballads, while September Song becomes an understated, mostly sap-free statement.

There are a few problems. I Can See Clearly Now is not particularly interesting, and the strings on September Song are a bit much.

But ultimately, the album stands out for Nelson's ability to incorporate these songs into his own vocabulary, in lieu of trying to perform them as jazz, or crossover. He really makes them his own - an admirable feat.