The Wonderful World of Andy Williams

When he came to record his fifth album (not including a set) in the fall of 1963, had established himself on the LP charts with discs devoted to film songs, notably the long-running chart-topper , and on the singles charts with peppier songs like featured a couple of songs associated with movies and some up-tempo numbers, but it was really neither here nor there as a collection. ' bouncy which made the Top 20 and the Top Five, was included, and among the other lively tunes was a remake of his first Top Ten hit, that led off the LP and a startling arrangement of the old hit with buried in a chorus and an abrupt shift from slow to driving , 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 , dating back to the 1940s for 's (another choral performance not unlike ' hit version) and coming up to the present for versions of hits like and ' was a good piece of material that had been a British hit for , but it would not gain U.S. recognition until cut it. Thus, there were interesting isolated moments on the album, but it was an uneven grab bag. ~ William Ruhlmann