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Performer: Willie Nelson
Producer: Leon Russell; Willie Nelson; Booker T. Jones
Distributor: Sony Music Distribution (

Notes: Personnel: Willie Nelson (vocals, guitar); Jody Payne (guitar); Mickey Raphael (harmonica); Bobbie Nelson (piano); Bee Spears, Chris Ethridge (bass); Paul English, Rex Ludwig (drums). Master Sound releases are 24-karat gold CDs remastered from first-generation masters. This process utilizes 20-bit technology and Sony's "Super Bit Mapping" system. This is a Super Audio CD playable only on Super Audio CD players. Personnel: Willie Nelson (vocals, guitar); Jody Payne (guitar); Mickey Raphael (harmonica); Bobbie Nelson (piano); Booker T. Jones (organ); Bee Spears, Chris Ethridge (bass); Paul English, Rex Ludwig (drums). Personnel: Willie Nelson (vocals, guitar); Chips Moman, Jody Payne, Johnny Christopher (guitar); Don Porter (guitars); Mickey Raphael (harmonica); Booker T. Jones (piano, organ); Bobbie Nelson (piano); Mark Yeary, Don Hass, Bill Ginn, Bobby Emmons (keyboards); Chris Etheridge, Mike Leech, Bee Spears (bass guitar); Bob Scott (drums, percussion); Bobby Wood (drums, background vocals); Rex Ludwick, Richie Albright, Paul English (drums); Tony Wine, Monique Moman, Casey Moman (background vocals). Recording information: Los Angeles 1977. 15 years before Tony Bennett made the Great American Songbook safe for the MTV generation, there was Willie Nelson's STARDUST, one of the greatest "crossover" albums in history. The concept was simple: Willie singing a select group of familiar standards by composers such as Carmichael, Berlin, Weill, Ellington, the Gershwins, all in his familiar and inimitable style. Yet the result is not a quite a country treatment of these tunes. For one thing, the great R&B organist Booker T. Jones produced in addition to performing with Nelson's superb band which also prominently features the estimable Mickey Raphael on harmonica. One of the enduring pleasures of STARDUST is the interplay between hushed organ, keening harmonica and Nelson's own stately gut-string guitar as well as his beautifully measured, plaintive singing. 15 years before Tony Bennett made the Great American Songbook safe for the MTV generation, there was Willie Nelson's STARDUST, one of the greatest "crossover" albums in history. The concept was simple: Willie singing a select group of familiar standards by composers such as Carmichael, Berlin, Weill, Ellington, the Gershwins, all in his familiar and inimitable style. Yet the result is not a quite a country treatment of these tunes. For one thing, the great R&B organist Booker T. Jones produced the session in addition to performing with Nelson's superb band featuring the estimable Mickey Raphael on harmonica. One of the enduring pleasures of STARDUST is the interplay between hushed organ, keening harmonica and Nelson's own stately gut-string guitar as well as his beautifully measured, plaintive singing.

Q (3/00, p.122) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...the first and best attempt by a contemporary artist to update...The Great American Songbook....not merely accessible but irresistible..." Dirty Linen (2-3/00, pp.63,65) - "...an album of classic American songs that just about everybody has heard....Nelson says that these Tin Pan Alley tunes are his all time favorite songs and, it seems that he and the band enjoyed playing them..." Q (Magazine) (p.120) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "In 1978 willie Nelson teamed up with producer Booker T Jones to record a whole album of Tin Pan Alley standards....It shouldn't have worked, but it did, giving him one of the biggest-selling albums of his career."

Willie Nelson began working in a conventional Nashville style and had great success as the songwriter of Faron Young's hit "Hello Walls" and others, but he was initially unable to make it as a performer. In the 1970s, he and Waylon Jennings made history with their outlaw country sound and image, growing their hair long and utilizing a raw, rock-influenced sound that endeared them to millions of country fans and rockers alike. Subsequently, Nelson ventured into Sinatra territory with STARDUST, an album of standards that became a huge success and established him as a singer who transcended genre boundaries. Throughout the '80s, '90s, and into the 21st century, he crossed over into pop and back again continually, even releasing an album of reggae covers, working with artists as diverse as Julio Iglesias and Ryan Adams.

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