Willie Nelson Stardust on Numbered Limited Edition LP from Mobile Fidelity Silver Label.

An American Classic: Gorgeous Breakthrough Album of Pop Standards Spent More than a Decade on Country Charts.

Quintuple Platinum 1978 Set Finds Nelson Interpreting Fare From Likes of Kurt Weill, Hoagy Carmichael, and Irving Berlin.

Sumptuous Sound Elevates Booker T. Jones’ Production: Mastered on Mobile Fidelity’s World-Renowned Mastering System and Pressed at RTI.

As a Singer, Nelson Never Better: Gets Inside the Phrasing, Lyrics, and Emotions of Songs.

“Why be predictable?,” Willie Nelson asked Columbia Records executive Nick Blackburn, after the latter resisted the Red Headed Stranger’s decision to make an album of classic pop tunes. Talk about outlaw country. Cutting against the genre’s traditions and Music Row conventions, Nelson’s Stardust remains a genius-level creation as well as the icon’s most commercially successful release, a truly gorgeous record infused with ultimate respect for composers and lyrics and many of the finest performances of his career. It is a quintessential part of any catalogue.

Mastered on Mobile Fidelity’s world-renowned mastering system and pressed at RTI, this Silver Label LP dazzles with dead-quiet surfaces, tube-like warmth, and an enhanced soundstage. Further exposing the delicate touches abounding in Stax legend Booker T. Jones’ production, this edition brings out the textured kernels of Nelson’s voice—and the deep-seeded dignity, austerity, devotion, grit, sensitivity, grace, and plaintiveness within it. His brilliant phrasing throughout is on par with that of Frank Sinatra and Ray Charles, two giants that influenced this project and his willingness to pair with strings and small combo to wondrous effect.

Having met Jones while living in Malibu, Nelson established a relationship with the musician that extended to roles as producer, arranger and band mate. Jones’ superior knowledge of the American Songbook comes through via the material’s economy of scale and sympathetic approach. Acoustic guitar arpeggios, contrasting breaks, bluesy harmonicas, glowing organs, R&B-tinged horns, brushed drums, and relaxed bass lines trickle throughout the songs, all distinguished by Nelson’s intimate timbre and absolutely astonishing vocal expressiveness.

In redefining and re-imagining standards such as Irving Berlin’s “Blue Skies,” Hoagy Carmichael’s “Georgia On My Mind,” and the age-old “All of Me”—all of which landed in the Top 5 of the Country singles chart—Nelson wedded together pop, country, jazz, folk, and blues in a manner in which no artist had ever before done. He gained considerable rewards for his exquisite efforts: Stardust sold more than five million copies and, incredibly, stayed on the Country album charts for more than ten years.

About Silver Series: Coming from Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, the MoFi Silver Label Vinyl Series features an eclectic mix of recordings. This series is mastered and cut on the famous Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab state-of-the-art Tim de Paravacini-designed mastering system. Vinyl is pressed at RTI on audiophile-grade standard vinyl and are numbered limited-editions. Future releases will continue to stretch stylistic boundaries, as the MoFi Silver Label continues to explore music from many different genres. Expand your musical horizons with the Silver Label!

This is a record no one should be without. Hear the definitive analog pressing.