Monday, August 16, 2010

Order Moon River and Me


I love Andy Williams. Saw him with my family in San Francisco in December of 2003. His voice was golden as ever. Considering the lack of autobiographies, or biographies for that matter, of the great popular singers, this book came as a surprise. I saw it at the airport in Baltimore and was surprised to see it. I didn't see any promotion for this book. Had I not seen it there, I never would have known about it. I enjoyed the book tremendously. I didn't realize how poor his family was. It was his father that decided to use music to make certain his boys would not have to live in such poverty and saw it as their way out. A lot of interesting stories, particularly about song writer Kay Thompson, the woman who almost single handedly made Andy's career. Even though I really enjoyed the book, I was disappointed with the lack of mention of the actual recording sessions, his opinion about the arrangers he worked with (except the ones he mentions on his TV shows, and the brief mentions of Archie Blyer) and how he was treated by Columbia Records. I found it curious in the fact that he said he bought the master tapes of all his recordings for Cadence and had them subsequently reissued on Columbia. This is interesting to me because when I purchased the reissues of the Cadence recordings on CD that were issued by Sony (which now owns the Columbia records library) I was disappointed at the incredibly poor quality of the transfer. Yet, when I bought the same Cadence recordings issued by Varese Sarabande, they sound excellent. So I wonder if Sony only had inferior copies of Andy's master tapes, or did Andy choose not to license the master tapes to Sony? So more clarification on why this is would have been helpful. I also wanted more insight in his style of recording, how often he rehearses and if he had any preferences for any particular arranger or conductor. So I guess I wanted a more insightful look at Andy the musician, in addition to all the great stories he had told. A minor quibble, but as a huge music fan, I would have found this material invaluable. I would have also liked a discography of his recorded works. That too is also absent, but again, this is a memoir and not intended as a discography of his recordings, but even a small discogarphy would have been welcome. One the whole, the book is very enjoyable and is a must for all Andy fans.Get more detail about Moon River and Me.

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