Music Review: Willie Nelson - Stardust: 30th Anniversary Legacy Edition

Written by Fantasma el Rey

The story of country music outlaw “Shotgun” Willie Nelson is fairly well known. He wrote a good number of hit songs for other artists while he was a minor vocal player on the country scene but in the early 1970s he came to the forefront along with other outlaws. Willie and friends changed the way that country music was made, breaking with tradition at times and staying way the hell clear of music trends and fads. They played what they wanted to and what their fans wanted to hear, not what was going to make them a quick buck. With Willie’s Stardust album he did just that: an entire platter’s worth of American pop standards done his way. Contrary to fears and concerns of record execs, the damn thing sold extremely well and still does, as the new two-disc Legacy Edition of the album proves. So put that beer down and mix up a drink as I tell you a little about “crooner” Willie’s Stardust.

Way back in nineteen hundred and seventy-eight, Willie Nelson told his record label, Columbia, about his plan to record an album of pop tunes that he loved by such folks as Berlin, Gershwin, and Ellington. They frowned a bit as they were surely hoping for more in the Red Headed Stranger vein but realized that that is what “artistic creative control” meant, something that Willie had managed to win in his contract a few years prior, so they had to give him the go-ahead. The idea of going the opposite direction from one’s last record wasn’t something new. Look at what Brother Ray Charles did with his country album, yet for good reason it is always seen as a radical move. From a profit point of view, the gamble can be a big one, fans and critics may not react so well and the whole thing could just come out awful. But Willie is a smart man and knew his unique voice would fit well on the proper tunes.

Article Author: Cinema Sentries

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