When he came to record his fifth
Columbia
album (not including a
holiday
set) in the fall of 1963,
Andy Williams
had established himself on the LP charts with discs devoted to film songs, notably the long-running chart-topper
Days of Wine and Roses
, and on the singles charts with peppier songs like
"Can't Get Used to Losing You."
The Wonderful World of Andy Williams
featured a couple of songs associated with movies and some up-tempo numbers, but it was really neither here nor there as a collection.
Williams
' bouncy
"A Fool Never Learns,"
which made the
pop
Top 20 and the
easy listening
Top Five, was included, and among the other lively tunes was a remake of his first Top Ten hit,
"Canadian Sunset,"
that led off the LP and a startling arrangement of the old
Bing Crosby
hit
"Pennies From Heaven"
with
buried in a chorus and an abrupt shift from slow
ballad
to driving
rock & roll
, complete with screaming electric guitar, halfway through. That, of course, was uncharacteristic for the usually smooth-sailing
, but you could easily imagine it making for an amusing production number on his television show. Most of the rest of the album consisted of familiar
ballads
, dating back to the 1940s for
Johnny Mercer
's
"Dream"
(another choral performance not unlike
the Pied Pipers
' hit version) and coming up to the present for
versions of hits like
Tony Bennett
"This Is All I Ask"
and
Jack Jones
'
"Wives and Lovers."
"Softly, As I Leave You"
was a good piece of material that had been a British hit for
Matt Monro
, but it would not gain U.S. recognition until
Frank Sinatra
cut it. Thus, there were interesting isolated moments on the album, but it was an uneven grab bag. ~ William Ruhlmann