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Willie Nelson Releases STARDUST: LEGACY EDITION 4-CD Box Set

In honor of the 30th anniversary of Stardust’s release in April 1978 - and as part of Legacy’s ongoing album release campaign in celebration of Willie’s 75th birthday on April 30, 2008,  - an event that was commemorated that month with the long-awaited publication of the biography Willie Nelson: An Epic Life (Little, Brown & Co.) written by Joe Nick Patoski - the newly-remastered deluxe double-CD package STARDUST: LEGACY EDITION will arrive in stores July 1st on Columbia/Legacy, a division of SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT.

The July 1st release of STARDUST: LEGACY EDITION also coincides with an annual Texas tradition, Willie Nelson’s Family Picnic.  This year, two all-star events have been scheduled, starring Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Ray Price, Los Lonely Boys, Asleep At The Wheel, David Allan Coe, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Billy Joe Shaver, and many others: Friday, July 4th at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Selma, just outside of San Antonio; and Saturday, July 5th at the Showgrounds at Sam Houston Race Park in Houston.  For info, go to: http://www.livenation.com.

The new double-CD configuration of STARDUST: LEGACY EDITION includes the original 10-song program on disc one, a dazzling collection of standards book-ended by the Hoagy Carmichael title tune, “Stardust,” and the Gershwins’ tender closing number, “Someone To Watch Over Me.”  Nestled in between (in addition to the aforementioned “Georgia On My Mind” and “Blue Skies”) are gems from the pens of Duke Ellington (”Don’t Get Around Much Anymore”), Kurt Weill (”September Song”), and the team of Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh (”On The Sunny Side Of The Street”), plus the familiar music and lyrics of “All Of Me,” “Unchained Melody,” and “Moonlight In Vermont.”

With the exception of “That Lucky Old Sun” (via Frankie Laine, Armstrong and Sinatra), from Willie’s 1976 album The Sound In Your Mind, all the other tracks on disc two date intentionally from post-Stardust albums.  These range from One For The Road, the double-LP that Willie recorded with Leon Russell in 1979 (three tracks: “Tenderly,” Harold Arlen’s “Stormy Weather,” and Johnny Mercer & Harold Arlen’s “One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)”), up through 1990’s Born For Trouble (a remake of Kitty Kallen’s 1954 hit, “Little Things Mean A Lot”).

Newest title in Legacy Edition series arrives in stores July 1st on Columbia/Legacy; follows up April 1st release of ‘One Hell Of A Ride,’ 100-song, 4-CD box set.