Song · Willie Nelson
“Unchained Melody” by Willie Nelson
From the album Stardust (1978)
“Unchained Melody” by Willie Nelson appears on 1 radio countdown from 1 station in 2009. It was first released in 1978 on the album Stardust. Its best result is #396 on the WXPN 885 Desert Island Songs (2009).
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Willie Nelson put his stamp on "Unchained Melody" on Stardust, released in April 1978, with Booker T. Jones producing and writing the arrangement and Donivan Cowart and Bradley Hartman engineering. The song was already an old movie tune by then: Alex North composed the music in 1955 as the theme for Unchained, a prison picture, and Hy Zaret put words to it.
It has been sung by just about everybody since, becoming a standard along the way; its publishing administrator counts more than 1,500 recordings by over 670 singers. Nelson's reading doesn't try to outshout any of them. It trusts the melody to carry the weight, and the melody does.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | 396 | WXPN | WXPN 885 Desert Island Songs (2009) | 885 |
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