From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Tue Dec 3, 2002  6:18 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Andy Williams
 
ANDY WILLIAMS

Born Howard Andrew Williams, 3 December 1928, Wall Lake, Iowa

I had my hesitations regarding the inclusion of crooner Andy Williams
in this feature, but I must confess that I like some of his Cadence
recordings, which came out on London in Europe. I remember seeing
him on Dutch television in early 1959, together with fellow Cadence
artists The Everly Brothers and The Chordettes, and naively marvelled
at how they all managed to sound just like their records. At that time,
lip-synching was an unknown phenomenon to me.
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". Andy Williams began his solo career in 1952, making several
appearances on Steve Allen's 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" (# 7). One
year later, his soft-toned cover Charlie Gracie's "Butterfly" spent three
weeks at # 1 (it's still his biggest hit) and also topped the UK charts.
Additional Top Ten entries "I Like Your Kind Of Love" (written and
originally recorded by Melvin Endsley), "Are You Sincere," "Lonely
Street" and "The Village of St. Bernadette" followed before Williams
moved to Columbia in 1961, where he scored another big hit in 1962,
"Can't Get Used to Losing You" (# 2). His high-rated variety program
on NBC-TV (1962-67, 1969-71) spurred interest in the ever-growing
LP market for adult and middle-of-the-road audiences. His albums
sold extremely well during the 1962-74 period and he was also very
popular in the UK, where his single "Solitaire" hit the Top 10 in 1973,
though it didn't even chart in America. Since then he has continued to
headline shows.

CD: 25 All-Time Greatest Hits, 1956-1961 : The Cadence Years (Varese
Sarabande, 2002).