The 500 - #260 - Stardust - Willie Nelson

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: #260
Album Title: Stardust
Artist: Willie Nelson
Genre: Various - Country, Folk, Jazz, Pop
Recorded: Enactron Truck Studio, Willie's driveway, Malibu, California
Released: April, 1978
My age at release: 11
How familiar was I with it before this week: A Couple Songs
Is it on the 2020 list? No
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Georgia On My Mind

In 1977, Willie Nelson went for a morning  jog on the beach near his home in Malibu, California, and happened upon musician, songwriter, record producer and arranger Booker T.  Jones. It was a  fortuitous meeting. Nelson was familiar with Jones' work, particularly with his time fronting the instrumental funk/R&B band Booker T. and the M.G.s  (Memphis Group) The pair struck up an easy and collegial friendship.

Booker T. (front) and the M.G.'s.

At the time, Nelson was riding high, enjoying the critical and commercial success from a string of popular releases, including his 1975 record, Red Headed Stranger (#183 on The 500). That record made Nelson one of the biggest artists in the country genre and also gave him mainstream recognition.

Album cover for Red Headed Stranger.
We'll get to it in November, 2024

Nelson was not afraid of taking chances. Earlier in the ‘70s, he had abandoned the country music establishment in Nashville and moved to Austin, Texas, to develop his own sound. Along with contemporaries Waylon Jennings and Hank Williams Jr. he eschewed the staunchly conservative limits of the Nashville Sound in favour of a growing sub-genre of music dubbed "Outlaw Country". The Nashville Sound, which had originated in the 1950s, blended the smoother elements from popular music of the time, including string accompaniment, backing vocals and slick production. Outlaw Country stripped the music back to its roots, from turn of the century cowboy ballads to the blues, honky-tonk music of the 1940s. He augmented the emerging style by incorporating elements of jazz, folk and southern rock into the sound.

Nelson’s chance meeting with Jones during his Malibu run spurred him into taking another risk.  At 44, he wanted to record an album of American pop standards from his childhood and asked Jones for help. They  started with an arrangement of Moonlight In Vermont, a 1944 jazz standard  previously been recorded by a who's-who of ‘50s and ‘60s crooners, such as Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra and Ray Charles.

The executives at Columbia Records, with whom Nelson was contracted, were hesitant to publish and instead encouraged him to release another record in the outlaw country vein. However, Nelson's contract gave him artistic liberty to record what he wanted. Despite the lack of enthusiasm from Columbia Records, Nelson to approached Canadian guitarist and record producer Brian Ahern who owned the Enactron Truck Studio, a mobile recording facility housed inside a portable trailer parked in nearby Hollywood Hills. In December, 1977, the truck was relocated to Nelson's driveway and recording began.

Ahern (back) at the soundboard of the Enactron Truck Studios (1978)

Nelson selected songs from The Great American Songbook, a "loosely defined canon of significant 20th Century American jazz standards, pop songs and show tunes", including Hoagy Carmichael's Stardust (1927) and Georgia On My Mind (1930); Irving Berlin's Blue Skies (1926); and Someone To Watch Over Me (1926) by George Gershwin.

Once again, Nelson's instincts were right. The album went to the top of Country charts in the United States and Canada and even fared well on the popular music charts. It has been certified platinum five times (more than five million units sold in the United States). It is also at #260 on the 2012 edition of The 500. In November, 1978, Willie was featured on the cover of Newsweek with the title "King Of Country Music".

This got me thinking. If I was as talented as Willie Nelson...and had an incredible arranger like Booker T. Jones at my disposal...and a state of the art recording studio parked in my driveway...what songs from my youth would comprise my album?

I limited myself to songs I loved before I turned 15 (in the summer of 1980) and which could be arranged into a style similar to the tracks on Stardust. As I mowed the grass recently, I mentally sorted through dozens of songs from my youth and settled on the following list of 10 tracks. 

I'd love to hear your list in the comments below or through social media.

Consider Yourself -- Oliver Soundtrack

All Shook Up -- Elvis Presley

Lido Shuffle -- Boz Scaggs

How Deep Is Your Love? -- The Bee Gees

Don't Bring Me Down -- Electric Light Orchestra

Surrender -- Cheap Trick

Honesty -- Billy Joel

Renegade -- Styx

Freewill -- Rush

More Than A Feeling -- Boston

Similar to Stardust, I gave my record a one-word title from one of the tracks, Freewill. Below is a mock-up of my imagined album cover, replete with my pseudonym Marc Quinn.

How about you?