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..."
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).
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.