Guess there's no use in hangin' 'round - guess I'll get dressed and do the town

Continuing my trip back through the 1965 album charts.

01/08/65 : Can't Get Used To Losing You And Other Requests - Andy Williams


Well - this took some tracking down! According to the internet, it doesn't exist but I found it on my streaming platform of choice as half of a double album reissue in '94, so - I hate to tell you this, but THE INTERNET LIED TO ME! It actually took me a surprising amount of time to track down that it was originally released in the US under the even snappier title of Days Of Wine And Roses And Other TV Requests in '63 but was renamed for the UK (I assume after the success of a certain single). Whatever, this is our fourth visit with Mr Williams - my overriding suspicion is that we've heard all we need to from him, but it will be bearable.

Actually, I think it's almost better than bearable - not quite enjoyable, but certainly getting there. For the most part, he's going head to head with Mr Sinatra with either a big band sound or some crooning, and he doesn't come off badly at all. And there's one track (which I didn't note down because I was driving) which was much more of an Elvis sound which was also decent enough - and then there's "Can't Get Used To Losing You" which, even though I know I'm hearing it through my "The Beat" filter, doesn't really sound like it's of this time - it's not a cheesy easy-listening sound at all.  And when compared with "You Are My Sunshine" and "When You're Smiling" it sounds very incongruous. It's certainly an interesting listen, but not a great one.

We're at #16 in the chart with a new entry this week and that was all it ever did, which seems most peculiar when you consider our previous visit with him spent 46 weeks in the chart, so I suspect that supply issues were involved. The top five this week were TSOM, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Mary Poppins and The Beatles and we have one more new entry in the chart for Matt Monro (#20) - bizarrely we've only ever mentioned Matt three times before but they were in '68. '05 and '20, so he's a man whose popularity has certainly endured.

Wikipedia tells us it's his eleventh album and was released after the first season of his TV variety show, snappily titled The Andy Williams Show. And that's pretty much all it has to tell us except for the critical reception, which was good and the commercial reception, which was better - in the US, at least. They didn't have a centralised album chart at the time, but it spent 16 weeks at #1 in both the Cashbox and Billboard versions - all of which makes its UK performance of a single week two years after it was released all the more perplexing.

"Customers also listened to" Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Perry Como and Johnny Mathis - we're in easy listening land there and no mistake. But I was surprised at how this was a step up from pure cheese - it was much better than I was expecting.

25/07/65 - Yeah, I liked this one
08/08/65 - An interesting listen

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