Willie Nelson - Stardust

Willie Nelson has spent seventy years refusing to do what Nashville told him, which is how he ended up as one of the most beloved American musicians alive. The guitar is beaten to pieces, the phrasing lands behind the beat, and nobody else sounds remotely like him.

In 1978, at the height of the outlaw country boom, Nelson recorded ten pop standards his mother used to sing around the house. His label was horrified. Stardust went on to spend a decade on the country album chart and sell more than five million copies.

Booker T. Jones produced and arranged it, which is why a record of Hoagy Carmichael and Irving Berlin songs has such a warm, soulful spine. "Georgia on My Mind" and "Blue Skies" both went to number one on the country chart, and "All of Me" and "Someone to Watch Over Me" are delivered with the same casual mastery.

It is the album that proved Nelson could sing anything, and it has never really gone out of print since.

Pressed on 140-gram vinyl.