By the late 1970s, Willie Nelson had finally become a star on his own terms. After years as a Nashville songwriter who wrote hits for others, he had broken through with Red Headed Stranger in 1975. A year later, Wanted! The Outlaws, with Waylon Jennings, Jessi Colter and Tompall Glaser, became the first country album certified platinum. In early 1978, Willie and Waylon were at the top of the charts together.
Everyone expected the king of outlaw country to keep doing what had worked. Instead, Willie made an album of old pop standards. It became one of the most successful records of his career.
Songs from his childhood
In 1977, Willie was living in Malibu, California. According to his own memoirs, he spent summer mornings jogging on the beach and thinking about the songs that had made him want to become a musician in the first place, and about the influence Frank Sinatra had on him.
He picked ten of his favorite pop songs from his childhood: “Stardust,” “Georgia on My Mind,” “Blue Skies,” “All of Me,” “Unchained Melody,” “September Song,” “On the Sunny Side of the Street,” “Moonlight in Vermont,” “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” and “Someone to Watch Over Me.” These were songs by Hoagy Carmichael, Irving Berlin, Duke Ellington, Kurt Weill and George and Ira Gershwin. Willie and his sister, Bobbie, had even owned the sheet music for “Stardust.”
“Nobody wants to hear ’em anymore”
On a trip to Nashville, Willie told Columbia Records executive Rick Blackburn about his plan. Blackburn was not impressed and suggested he concentrate on writing new songs instead. Willie admitted his younger fans might not know the old tunes, but he believed the album would reach older listeners who had never paid attention to his music.
Years later, Willie summed up the label’s attitude: the project cost too much, and nobody wanted to hear those old songs anymore. Then he added:
“Again, they were wrong.”
A neighbor named Booker T.
The album found its producer by chance. Living in the same Malibu neighborhood was Booker T. Jones, the organist behind Booker T. & the M.G.’s and a legend of Memphis soul at Stax Records. The two met after one of Willie’s morning runs and became friends. Willie asked Booker to arrange “Moonlight in Vermont” for him. He loved the result so much that he asked Booker to produce the whole album.
Willie did have one doubt. He was nervous about recording “Georgia on My Mind,” because he kept comparing himself to Ray Charles, whose version was famous around the world. Booker’s answer became the guiding idea for the entire record: Ray did it his way, and Willie would do it his. From then on, Willie approached each song as his own.
Ten days in the Hollywood Hills
The sessions were simple. Willie used a mobile recording truck owned by producer Brian Ahern, parked at Ahern’s home in the Hollywood Hills, with cables running into the house where the band played. Most songs took just a few takes in the living room. Harmonica player Mickey Raphael recorded his parts in a tiled bathroom shower. Booker kept the arrangements spare, with no backup singers and no lush strings. The whole album was recorded between December 3 and December 12, 1977.
Willie even refused to put his photo on the cover. Instead, he used a painting of the Pleiades star cluster by artist Susanna Clark, wife of songwriter Guy Clark. Columbia was so unsure about the project that it pressed fewer copies than usual.
Ten years on the charts
Stardust came out in April 1978, and it sold fast enough that Columbia had to press more. It reached No. 1 on Billboard’s country albums chart and No. 30 on the all-genre album chart. “Georgia on My Mind” and “Blue Skies” both went to No. 1 on the country singles chart, and “All of Me” reached No. 3. In 1979, “Georgia on My Mind” won Willie the Grammy for Best Male Country Vocal Performance.
That August, Newsweek put Willie on its cover as the King of Country Music. Stardust stayed on the country albums chart for 540 weeks, about ten years, and kept reappearing until its final week in January 1991. It was certified five times platinum, for 5 million copies, and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2015.
His way
Critics at the time noticed something important. Willie did not try to sound like a crooner. He sang those sophisticated songs with the same plain, easy phrasing he used on his own material, and somehow they felt like they had always belonged to him.
That is the secret of Willie Nelson. Outlaw country, gospel, western swing, pop standards, it never really mattered. People did not love him for a genre. They loved him because whatever he sang, he sang it his way. As he put it decades later, good songs never die.