Andy Williams - Original Album Collection Vol. 2 (2013) Japanese Mini-LP 8CD Box Set

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Andy Williams - Original Album Collection Vol. 2 (2013) Japanese Mini-LP 8CD Box Set

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An engaging crooner, TV personality, and entrepreneur, Andy Williams was one of the most bankable and popular singers of his era. With his laid-back delivery, supple voice, and amiable charm, Williams rode a wave of success that took him from a childhood vocal act with his brothers to worldwide fame as a solo artist, eventually finding latter-day success as a theater impresario in Branson, Missouri. Though he started out as a crooner in the post-Frank Sinatra style, his wide-ranging taste in music (as evidenced by the guests on his '60s variety show) found him embracing artists and songs across generational and stylistic boundaries; and he can be heard on record interpreting songs that range from traditional pop to rock to bossa nova, country, and beyond. From the pre-rock & roll era onward, Williams was one of the most recognizable singers of his day.

Born in Wall Lake, Iowa, Williams sang in his church choir and later formed a quartet with his three brothers. The group performed on radio throughout the Midwest, then moved to Los Angeles to make it in show business. The Williams Brothers Quartet appeared on Bing Crosby's 1944 hit "Swinging on a Star" and appeared with comedienne Kay Thompson during the late '40s.

Andy Williams finally began his solo career in 1952, making several appearances on Steve Allen's The Tonight Show before signing a contract with Archie Bleyer's Cadence Records in 1955. He hit the Top Ten in 1956 with his third single for the label, "Canadian Sunset." One year later, his soft-toned cover of the Charlie Gracie rockabilly nugget "Butterfly" hit number one (it's still his biggest hit). Additional Top Ten entries "Are You Sincere," "Lonely Street," and "The Village of St. Bernadette" followed before Williams moved to Columbia in 1961.

Despite another big hit in 1963, "Can't Get Used to Losing You," Williams failed to generate much action on the singles charts during the 1960s. Instead, his highly rated variety program on NBC-TV spurred interest in the ever-growing LP market for adult and middle-of-the-road audiences. The popular 1962 album Moon River & Other Great Movie Themes featured the song he's most identified with, and the following year's Days of Wine and Roses hit the top of the album charts. Nine more LPs hit the Top Ten for Andy Williams during the '60s, many organized around loose themes – Broadway, ballads, and one album that featured members of his family. Though 1971's Love Story was a platinum success that sparked a Top Ten hit for the title song, his television show was canceled that year.

Andy Williams remained very popular during the '70s, especially for British audiences. His single "Solitaire" hit the Top Ten there in 1973, though it didn't even chart in America. Two of his subsequent albums also performed well, but only in Britain. He released relatively few LPs during the 1980s, but returned to the pop world in the early '90s when he founded his own theater/resort in the home-grown entertainment capital of Branson, Missouri. Williams continued to headline shows there for 20 years, although he announced from its stage during a Christmas 2011 show that he had been diagnosed with cancer. It finally took his life on September 25, 2012.

Biography by John Bush, Allmusic.com

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Andy Williams - Original Album Collection Vol. 2 (2013) Japanese Mini-LP 8CD Box Set

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Andy Williams - Original Album Collection Vol. 2 (2013) Japanese Mini-LP 8CD Box Set

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By 1965, a spring Andy Williams ballad album keyed to movie theme songs had become a 1960s tradition, and Dear Heart was the fourth in the series. Like its predecessors, Moon River & Other Great Movie Themes (1962), Days of Wine and Roses (1963), and The Academy Award Winning "Call Me Irresponsible" (1964), it featured the latest Henry Mancini movie song, in this case "Dear Heart," which had already become a Top 40 pop and Top Five easy listening hit for the singer. There were also other movie themes: "Almost There," from I'd Rather Be Rich, another previous chart entry; "I'm All Smiles" from The Yearling; and "Emily" from The Americanization of Emily. Most of the other selections were Williams' covers of songs that had been hits recently for other male pop singers: "Red Roses for a Blue Lady" (Vic Dana); "Who Can I Turn To (When Nobody Needs Me" (Tony Bennett); and "You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You" and "Everybody Loves Somebody" (Dean Martin). The album was filled out by a few choice oldies: "It Had to Be You"; "I Can't Stop Loving You"; "Till." (There was also a performance of an early Kenny Rankin song, "My Carousel.") Williams applied his usual warm, smooth vocal style to all the songs, with string-filled arrangements that emphasized the melodies; not for him was the bluesy approach of Ray Charles on "I Can't Stop Loving You" or the '50s rock & roll rhythm of Dean Martin's "Everybody Loves Somebody." The album was a well-assembled collection of contemporary material in what had become Williams' patented style. It became his fifth consecutive gold-selling Top Ten LP.

William Ruhlmann, Allmusic.com

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Andy Williams - Original Album Collection Vol. 2 (2013) Japanese Mini-LP 8CD Box Set

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With a couple of re-titled reissues (Hawaiian Wedding Song, Canadian Sunset) in 1965 and a compilation (Andy Williams' Newest Hits) in early 1966 to keep customers happy, Andy Williams was able to take more than a year to craft a follow-up to Dear Heart. When The Shadow of Your Smile appeared in the spring of 1966, it was, on the surface, a typical Andy Williams album. It was titled after the year's Academy Award-winning Best Song (from The Sandpiper) and otherwise combining songs that, if not brand-new, had recently been hits for other artists, such as "Try to Remember" (Ed Ames), "Somewhere" (P.J. Proby), and "A Taste of Honey" (Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass), with old favorites like "That Old Feeling," "Peg O' My Heart," and "Bye Bye Blues." But there were notable changes in Williams' approach. Two years after the British Invasion and the bossa nova craze, he acknowledged both movements with two covers each. From the Beatles came "Michelle" and "Yesterday"; from Antonio Carlos Jobim came "Meditation" and "How Insensitive." Of course, such material was not entirely foreign to Williams, who had put a bossa nova version of "Begin the Beguine" on The Great Songs from "My Fair Lady" and Other Broadway Hits in 1964 and recorded Under Paris Skies, an album that easily could have included "Michelle," had it been written yet, in 1960. But The Shadow of Your Smile also had a slower, more languorous feel than earlier Williams albums, and it had more vocal risk-taking, particularly on the Jobim numbers and in the long-held note at the end of "Somewhere." The alterations indicated that Williams was not content to simply turn out the same sort of album over and over, and that he was paying attention to the changes in popular music around him.

William Ruhlmann, Allmusic.com

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Andy Williams - Original Album Collection Vol. 2 (2013) Japanese Mini-LP 8CD Box Set

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For the sixth year in a row, Andy Williams greeted the spring with a new album keyed to the Academy Award Best Song nominations, and his audience rewarded him yet again with a Top Ten placing and a gold record. For the fifth time in six years, the album was titled after the Oscar winner (the only exception being 1965, when he bet on "Dear Heart" instead of "Chim Chim Cheree") and also featured other movie songs, in this case "Somewhere, My Love" from Dr. Zhivago, "Strangers in the Night" from A Man Could Get Killed, "I Will Wait for You" from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and "Alfie." And, as usual, Williams took for his own songs popularized by his fellow male pop singers, Frank Sinatra's "Strangers in the Night" and Al Martino's "Spanish Eyes." But Born Free marked a notable contemporization of the Williams formula. On his most recent albums, The Shadow of Your Smile and In the Arms of Love, he had leaned toward Brazilian sounds, recording more obscure material and several standards from the interwar period. In the Arms of Love, released only four months before Born Free, had sold disappointingly. Williams reacted by dropping the bossa nova and the oldies and looked more to the recent pop charts for covers like Bobby Hebb's "Sunny." He even recorded "I Want to Be Free" (AKA "I Wanna Be Free") from the Monkees' first album. And he scored a Top 40 hit with a pop/rock arrangement of "Music to Watch Girls By," the tune that originated on a Diet Pepsi commercial and had been an instrumental hit for the Bob Crewe Generation. At a time when non-rock pop singers were beginning to be marginalized, Williams successfully threaded the needle, reassuring his older listeners while proving adaptable to current trends.

William Ruhlmann, Allmusic.com

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Andy Williams - Original Album Collection Vol. 2 (2013) Japanese Mini-LP 8CD Box Set

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In the fall of 1967, Andy Williams was gone from the regular prime time television schedule, cutting back to a few specials after five years of hosting his weekly variety show. But Williams fans could console themselves with a new album that delivered the usual musical pleasures. The singer had edged more toward contemporary sounds on his previous release, the previous spring's Born Free, bringing in a rock rhythm section and sticking to current material. Love, Andy edged back a bit, focusing more on string arrangements. As usual, Williams made his song choices from certain categories, particularly movie theme songs and recent pop hits. Among the former were "Watch What Happens" from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, also the source for "I Will Wait for You" from Born Free; "The Look of Love" from Casino Royale; and "When I Look in Your Eyes" from the just-issued soundtrack to the upcoming Christmas release Doctor Doolittle. The latter category included Williams' takes on Nancy and Frank Sinatra's "Somethin' Stupid" and Frankie Valli's "Can't Take My Eyes Off You." Williams' affection for things Gallic was expressed not only in "Watch What Happens," but also in "What Now, My Love." He returned to oldies in the form of two Harry Warren/Mack Gordon movie songs from the 1940s that suggested he'd been paying attention to Chris Montez, who had lately revived "The More I See You" and "There Will Never Be Another You" for hits. He kept current by covering the Beach Boys' "God Only Knows," and even threw in a new song, "Holly," which was released as a single and made the easy listening Top Five. Taken together, the album was a balanced collection, not unlike a variety show on record made by an artist mindful of trying to appeal to the widest audience possible.

William Ruhlmann, Allmusic.com

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Andy Williams - Original Album Collection Vol. 2 (2013) Japanese Mini-LP 8CD Box Set

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In the late '60s, record company executives like Clive Davis of Columbia were encouraging their middle-of-the-road pop singers to cover the songs of contemporary pop/rock performers as a way of staying current. Andy Williams, who was a bit younger than his peers, needed no such encouragement, as he had been drawing on the recent hit parade for some of his material for years. But Honey marked his complete crossover to such an approach. Where earlier Williams albums had been a canny mix of movie songs, standards, pop hits, and foreign – especially French – material, ten of Honey's 11 tracks were songs that had been Top 40 hits in the last two years. (The only exception was "Our Last Goodbye," co-written by Williams favorite Nick De Caro, which musically was a retread of another recent Top 40 hit, "A Whiter Shade of Pale.") True, there were a couple of movie songs ("This Is My Song" from The Countess From Hong Kong and "Theme From 'Valley of the Dolls,'" plus "Scarborough Fair/Canticle," not written for, but heavily featured in, The Graduate) and even one show tune ("The Impossible Dream [The Quest]" from Man of La Mancha), and "Love Is Blue" was French. But the songs were for the most part closely associated with hit recordings by the likes of the Association, the 5th Dimension, and Glen Campbell. The arrangements closely resembled those of the hit recordings, so the appeal of the album seemed to be exclusively to Williams fans who wanted to hear their hero, rather than Bobby Goldsboro, sing the maudlin hit "Honey." Columbia didn't even put Williams' current single, "Sweet Memories," on the LP. The singer did his best and was rewarded with yet another Top Ten gold-record seller, but the album lacked the balance of earlier efforts.

William Ruhlmann, Allmusic.com

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Andy Williams - Original Album Collection Vol. 2 (2013) Japanese Mini-LP 8CD Box Set

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In the spring of 1969, Andy Williams scored his biggest pop hit in four and a half years with the German import "Happy Heart," getting well into the Top 40. (The single probably would have done even better if there hadn't been a competing version by Petula Clark.) This was reason enough to slap together an album of the same name, filled out with the singer's interpretations of current pop hits. But the Happy Heart LP didn't really differ much in its approach from Williams' previous album, Honey, which also contained nearly all pop covers. The only real difference was that this time Williams was not waiting so long. "My Way" was just peaking in the charts for Frank Sinatra, for example, as was Elvis Presley's "Memories," and Glen Campbell's "Where's the Playground Susie" had only just come out. It was as if Williams was picking the tracks by listening to the radio on the way to the studio. Campbell and his favorite songwriter, Jimmy Webb, were particular favorites: Williams also covered "Wichita Lineman" (written by Webb and recorded by Campbell), "Gentle on My Mind" (recorded by Campbell), and "Didn't We" (written by Webb), as well as "Where's the Playground Susie" (written by Webb). The arrangements were close approximations of those on the hit versions by Stevie Wonder ("For Once in My Life"), O.C. Smith ("Little Green Apples"), and the rest, so that the main appeal of the album seemed to be that Williams' voice replaced that of the familiar one. In the case of Dion's "Abraham, Martin and John," the tribute to Robert F. Kennedy and other slain leaders, Williams, a friend of Kennedy's, certainly had a claim on the song, and he sang it with conviction. Elsewhere, he seemed to be turning in a professional but uninspired job.

William Ruhlmann, Allmusic.com

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Andy Williams - Original Album Collection Vol. 2 (2013) Japanese Mini-LP 8CD Box Set

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This is a precious feast to enjoy of delightful '70s love songs, sung and performed with sincerity by beloved pop singer talent Andy Williams. Though not as special or charming as the original performances, Williams gives all of his soul and heart to pull off some stirring renditions of the amiable type to the kind listener. Favorites of the '70s feature the Beatles' "Something," James Taylor's "Fire and Rain," and Elton John's "Your Song." Invigorating at times, the songs seem to achieve the purpose of easing the listener's stress-filled day. Dick Glasser gives much of his time as producer in finding Andy Williams' unique sound, with Artie Butler and Dick Hazard playing a splendid role in the arrangements. A wistful breath of fresh air away from the takeover of entertainers Frank Sinatra and Neil Diamond, the record is a pleasant listening experience for those who appreciate romantic ballads and melancholy orchestra background music. This collection shows just how easy it came to cover love ballads and pop hits in the '70s, giving Williams and his dazzling entertainer style voice the right time to shine during his days of stardom. So turn your lights down low and get with the one you share dreams with, and be prepared to feel the love.

Shawn M. Haney, Allmusic.com

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Andy Williams - Original Album Collection Vol. 2 (2013) Japanese Mini-LP 8CD Box Set

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Andy Williams - Original Album Collection Vol. 2 (2013) Japanese Mini-LP 8CD Box Set

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