Stardust

WILLIE NELSON [30th Anniversary Legacy Edition]

(Sony)

For those of us who never quite got Willie Nelson the country-music outlaw/baked hippie, there is Stardust, his absolutely exquisite rendering of material from the Great American Songbook. Delicate, simpatico production courtesy of Booker T. Jones thrusts Nelson's nasal croon way out front on tunes like "Blue Skies," "September Song," Someone To Watch Over Me," Georgia on My Mind," "All of Me" and others. Nelson's relaxed phrasing lends the songs a warm folksiness, and he chips in a series of plaintive acoustic guitar solos that add just the right touch. A second bonus disc collects 16 more standards, mostly recorded in the '80s, which are given the high-gloss Nashville treatment. These tracks are not as beguiling as those on the original Stardust, but are nevertheless worthwhile.

This article appears in Oct 1-7, 2008.

Eric Snider is the dean of Bay area music critics. He started in the early 1980s as one of the founding members of Music magazine, a free bi-monthly. He was the pop music critic for the then-St. Petersburg...