Stardust (Willie Nelson album)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Stardust is the 23rd studio album by Willie Nelson that spans the genres of pop, jazz, and country music. Its ten songs consist entirely of pop standards that Nelson picked from among his favorites. Nelson asked Booker T. Jones, who was his neighbor in Malibu at the time, to arrange a version of "Moonlight in Vermont". Impressed with Jones's work, Nelson asked him to produce the entire album. Nelson's decision to record such well-known tracks was controversial among Columbia executives because he had distinguished himself in the outlaw country genre. Recording of the album took only ten days.
Released in April, Stardust was met with high sales and near-universal positive reviews. It peaked at number one in [[Billboard charts|BillboardTemplate:'s Top Country Albums]] and number thirty in the Billboard 200. Meanwhile, it charted at number one in Canadian [[RPM (magazine)|RPMTemplate:'s Country Albums]] and number twenty-eight in RPMTemplate:'s Top Albums. The singles "Blue Skies" and "All of Me" peaked respectively at numbers one and three in BillboardTemplate:'s Hot Country Singles.
In 1979, Nelson won a Grammy Award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance for the song "Georgia on My Mind". Stardust was on the BillboardTemplate:'s Country Album charts for ten years—from its release until 1988. The album also reached number one in New Zealand and number five in Australia in 1980. In 2003, the album was ranked number 257 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. It was originally certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America in December 1978. In 1984, when it was certified triple platinum, Nelson was the highest-grossing concert act in the United States. In 2002, the album was certified quintuple platinum, and it was later inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame class of 2015.
