E-mail a friendAndy Williams
airdate October 23, 2009
Then-President Reagan declared Andy Williams' voice "a national treasure." During a career spanning some seven decades, Williams received 18 gold and 3 platinum-certified albums, hosted a weekly Emmy-winning TV variety show and became a top nightclub favorite. He opened Caesar's Palace in '66 and headlined there for 20 years. He also has his own dinner theater in Branson, MO, where, he still performs. Williams' new memoir, Moon River and Me, is named after his signature and Oscar-winning song from the film Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Entertainer talks about his heyday in the '60s and what keeps him performing now. (2:03)
Full Interview (21:50)
Andy Williams
Tavis: Pleased to welcome Andy Williams to this program. The legendary entertainer has accomplished just about everything one can in show business during what has been a remarkable career. Details of his unlikely path to success from a rural upbringing in Iowa are the subject of his new memoir finally, Moon River and Me. Before we get to that, though, here are some classic clips from the Emmy-winning variety show that helped make Andy Williams a household name.
[Clip]
Tavis: I think that was a smile on your face watching those clips.
Andy Williams: I just loved singing with Tony Bennett. It was a treat. And Count Basie, of course, and Ray Charles. You know, I had a very charmed, lucky life to have had a series of television shows for ten years that gave me an opportunity to sing with all these great singers. It was just fun. It really was.
Tavis: Before we came on camera - I've said many times that the best part of this show is the conversations I get a chance to have with these icons either before the camera starts rolling or after it stops rolling when we finish the conversation. You were starting to tell me before we came on camera here about the book and we were talking about your early life, the backstory. You were sharing with me how you thought that you had written perhaps -
Williams: - I did. I thought maybe I'd written too much about this, my father in getting us started and my brothers and me singing on the radio for so many years. It was his passion really, not mine, to be a successful radio performer, which is what he wanted his boys to be. You know, I was seven years old when we started. I would just as soon have been out playing kick the can or baseball.
But he - sort of like the Osmond Brothers family when they came on my show in the early '60s, they were about the same ages that my brothers and I were when we started. Like the Osmond Brothers' father, George, he had this determination that we were going to make something and get us out of Wall Lake, Iowa, this little town where we were living during the Depression, and to move on to bigger and better things. He could see it possibly through his sons, four boys who could sing harmony which we learned in the church choir.
So it was his determination really and his work ethic, not mine, but one that he instilled in me, that kept me going in times that were really hard when I started singing alone after being with my brothers and Kay Thompson, you know, for so many years, then to find out that my brothers didn't want to continue singing. My brother Don wanted to be an agent. He wanted to be on the other side. And my brother Dick wanted to be with Harry James Band, which he did. He went with them for about three years.
Here I was, 22 years old, trying to decide what I could do. I'd just finished high school, hadn't gone to college. I knew I could sing, so I took this shot and took off for New York to get an agent. I'm talking too much, aren't I? (Laughter)
Tavis: No. I'm taking it in. I want to jump in, though, right quick since you're giving me the opportunity. I raised that initial point about the fact that you were telling me you thought you'd written too much about the early years. You were saying to me that you have been on this tour and you're realizing that people really appreciate knowing the backstory.
Williams: Well, a lot of people have said to me that they really have learned a great deal about radio that they didn't know and how it could advance your career. We think now of radio as not being very important, and television is the thing or movies or the thing or records are the thing. But at the time, radio was it.
Bing Crosby, for instance, whom we met when I was 14 years old, had more air play, I think, on the radio than any other singer by, you know, ten times. He was so big and so important not only from radio and records, but from the movies. We made a record with him called Swinging on a Star, which was a big, big record. You're too young to remember. But it was a great record. And the Williams Brothers were on that record. That started us off really in Hollywood.
Tavis: You mentioned a moment ago that this was, of course, during the era of the Depression. You had to live through that, were raised through that. How did your father during that particular era - there were people during the Depression that were jumping out of windows because things were so bad. What gave him reason to believe that the talent that he had or that you all had could get you out of the situation that you were in?
Williams: Well, he knew that the four boys could sing four-part harmony even though it was hymns at the beginning, then it was barber shop, but we could sing. There weren't very many families around in Iowa who were singers, who could sing like the Osmond Brothers did. So he could see that we had a chance of - I think it was more getting him out of Wall Lake, Iowa and his depressed area that we lived in. Of course, everybody was having hard times during that time.
Tavis: You tell a funny story in the book which I love about the fact that there were times when your father would be indebted to someone and, when he couldn't afford to pay the debt, he would offer to let the boys sing.
Williams: He was very good at that. We had a little brother who died when he was three years old and we didn't have the money to give him a decent funeral. My father was able to talk the funeral parlor into taking us in every afternoon after school and all day on Saturday and sing hymns during the different services that they put on. Eventually after a few months, we paid off the debt.
He did that other times. I mean, he would take us into Florsheim in Chicago when we first moved to Chicago and fit us all out with shoes and then the guy would say, "Oh, it looks very good on you, boys" and then my dad would say, "Now we got to figure out how to pay for them." He'd work out something, you know. We sang at a Florsheim convention that he knew was coming in town, to buy the shoes, but he was very good at that.
Tavis: It's one thing - you were in Hollywood, so you know the story better than I do, or certainly as well as I do. There are all kinds of parents who are pushing their kids into things that they want their kids to do. By your own admission, this was your father's dream for you. When did your father's dream become your own?
Williams: Well, I realized this dream had come about a circle when I had my own television show and my mother and father would come every week and sit in the audience and watch the show. Here I was singing with Bing Crosby and Ella Fitzgerald and Tony Bennett, Johnny Mathis and the Jackson 5, Elton John. Because everybody wanted to be on the show if they had something to sell. You know, if they had a new record out.
Like Elton John had just recorded Your Song. We had the same agent and my agent said, "You've got to put this guy on. You've got to put him on. He is absolutely great." So I said, "Well, ask him to come by and I'd like to hear the record that you think is so wonderful." I played the record and Elton was sitting there. He was a young guy. I think he was wearing a black cape and he had horn-rimmed glasses that were all encrusted with -
Tavis: - that sounds like Elton John (laughter).
Williams: I thought he was a strange looking little cat, I must say, but when he sang the song, I said, "My God, this guy is really something." In the book, I say, "I wonder whatever happened to him (laughter)."
Tavis: How did you develop your sound? I mean, I think of your era, I think of all these crooners. I mean, there's you, to your point, there's Bing Crosby, there's Sinatra, there's Bennett. How did Andy Williams in the midst of all that create his own signature sound?
Williams: Well, I didn't create it. It was just there. I don't think people create their sound. When I first started making records for Archie Bleyer on Cadence Records, when I sang for him, he said, "Well, one great thing. You don't sound like anybody else." I just had a sound that was different than Frank Sinatra or Tony Bennett or Johnny Mathis or any of the other singers of my ilk. That was important.
You know, when you hear Nat King Cole, you know it's Nat King Cole. When you hear Mel Torme, you know it's Mel Torme. When you hear Sinatra, you know it's Sinatra and when you hear me, you know it's me. That, I just lucked out on that.
Tavis: How important was it for you then - we know how the story ends. I mean, your music has endured, the sound has endured. Every year at my mother's house, we're hearing the Andy Williams Christmas record. I mean, I've been hearing this since I was born and we hear Andy Williams every year at Christmas time. If no other time, we hear him at Christmas time for certain. What do you make of the fact that the music that you have given us has endured through the years?
Williams: Well, I know it has because I run into people who tell me all the time how important like, say for instance, the Christmas shows were to their families. I was in England one time in Manchester and I walked into a radio station to plug the fact that I was in town. I was working on some concert. When I walked in, she said, "You're Andy Williams." I said, "Yeah, what's left of me, I am." She said, "My mother just loves you. She's got all your records. She plays your records all the time and you saved her life."
I said, "Well, how did I possibly save her life?" She said, "Well, she had a stroke and she went into a coma and, since she loved your music so much, we decided to play it day and night over and over and over because we felt that it would wake her up and, after two weeks, it did. She opened her eyes and said, 'Will you turn that damn thing off? I'm sick of him.' (Laughter)
Tavis: (Laughter) You did save her life, though.
Williams: I saved her life. I was glad to be there to do something good. But I know that it has affected a lot of people over the years, the music, and it goes on and on and on. As we get older, we lose a younger audience who are into other kinds of music.
So instead of playing big coliseums or a 20,000-seat place, the next thing you get down to 10,000 seats and then you get down to 5,000 seats and then you get down to 2,000 seats. But at least those people who come to see in the 2,000-seaters, they really are fans.
Tavis: To your point now, how do you process that, though? You've lived long enough, to your point now, your own admission, to have gone through that phase. How do you at this age process that this is the crowd that I now have?
Williams: Well, you know that you're not going to keep the young. The music keeps changing every 20 years or so. But you're definitely grateful that you have as many fans as you have at 80 years. I have a theater in Branson, Missouri. It seats 2000, a little more. We do two shows a day and, up until this last year with the recession, we were full most every show. Now it's dropped off some. So you know that there are people that want to still see you.
Tavis: By your own admission, again, in this book, you would peg your heyday in the '60s. You were king of the hill back in the day.
Williams: That was the time when I was doing, you know -
Tavis: - everything.
Williams: Weekly television and making three albums a year, which they did then, you know, because you'd go in and you'd do live sessions. I was in recording on thing and Dean Martin came out and said, "You still making your album? I did mine in one day." (Laughter) The band was there and they'd sing 12 songs and that was it.
Tavis: Nobody cranks out three records in - that's impossible. That's like unheard of these days.
Williams: Well, they used to try and get four songs in three hours. So you'd use the same band and Nelson Riddle or somebody would write the arrangement, so you didn't have to make every one of them completely different. The songs would make them different, the orchestrations would make them different, but the musicians are there and they play it and you sing it.
So we used to try and do three sessions, four songs at each session, and you'd have twelve things in an album. I used to go in and do three of those a year.
Tavis: That's amazing. I raised that thing about your heyday because I'm curious as to how you move - let me rephrase that. How do you keep moving when you know that you're out of your heyday?
Williams: Well, you want to sing and you know that you've got some fans. You know, you have a large amount of people that are still buying your records, so you keep going. I mean, you do it more for yourself than the fact that you don't have the same amount of fans that you did when you were 25 or something. Tony Bennett doesn't either. Frank Sinatra doesn't. Of course, he's gone.
Tavis: Speaking of Tony Bennett, I love him.
Williams: I do too.
Tavis: Great guy. I'm gonna see him in New York in a couple of weeks and go check him out. But every time I get a chance to go see him, I do, and I'm always amazed and I'm sure you are, certainly all his fans are, and I always talk to him about how he has protected his pipe, that voice. He has a whole training regimen that he goes through that he'll tell you about. But tell me what you make of the fact that you've been able to protect your voice all these years.
Williams: I really don't do much.
Tavis: Just lucky like that.
Williams: Yeah, I'm just lucky that way. When I was doing my show, Sinatra came in and was doing a special of his. He was warming up in one studio, in a small studio, just a piano and he was warming up. One of the writers of my show who knew him quite well went by and said, "Hello, Frank." Frank said, "What are you doing?" He said, "I'm doing the Andy Williams Show down there. I see you're vocalizing." Frank said, "Yeah, I have to." He said, "Andy never does." (Laughter)
Tavis: (Laughter) Just walks out and starts singing.
Williams: Frank said, "Thanks a lot." (Laughter) But I never did. It was just easy to sing. I do warm up. Before I go on, I do some moos. "Moo, moo." That sort of gets these vocal chords mumbling and then you can feel it in your throat, "Moo, moo, Moon River." (Laughter)
Tavis: And it comes.
Williams: And it comes out.
Tavis: And it comes out, yeah. You write in the book - there's so much. I'm just trying to pick out things here and there. You write about your friendship with Bobby Kennedy. Tell me Bobby Kennedy.
Williams: I was doing the show in the '60s and he was at NBC doing some show. I don't know what it was, Face the Nation or one of those political shows, and he stopped by the set. He said, "I just wanted to tell you that Ethel and all the kids and I watch your show every week and we just love it." I said, "What are you doing in town?" He said, "Well, I came in here to do this show," Face the Nation or whatever it was, "and I'm staying over a day. I'm going to a birthday party for Lou Wasserman's wife. It's her 50th birthday."
I said, "Claudine and I are gonna be there. I'm gonna start everybody singing Happy Birthday." So that's when Claudine and I really got to know them a little bit that night. The next day, I was playing golf with my friend, Pierre Cossette, at Riviera.
Tavis: He passed away not long ago.
Williams: Yeah, he did. He was in a coma when I saw him. I remembered what that lady had said about her mother. He loved one song that I did. Every time I'd start singing it, he would start singing it. So I went up close to him and sang "Do nothin' till you hear from me," thinking that might wake him up. It didn't. But I remembered what that lady had said, that you can hear when you're in a coma, but you just can't talk. But, anyway, what were we talking about? Oh, Bobby Kennedy.
So I was playing golf with Pierre and, when we got around to the second nine at the refreshment stand, let's say, I got a phone call from Claudine. She said, "Bobby Kennedy just called and wants us to come down to Palm Springs and spend the weekend with Ethel and him." I said, "Well, I can't because I'm beating Pierre (laughter)." I told Pierre that and he says, "Are you crazy? How can you pass up going down and spending the weekend with maybe the next President of the United States? Do you think Bing Crosby would have done that? I mean, you're just dumb." I said, "Well, okay."
So I went home and packed up and we went down and that was the beginning of it. We just became very, very good friends. We never talked politics because I wasn't into politics at all. He asked me if I'd be a delegate for him from California at the convention in '68. He said, "Shirley MacLaine is gonna be one; I'd like you to be the other." I said, "Sure, I'd love to."
Then about a month later, I called him and said, "I hope I haven't screwed this up. I don't want to embarrass you or anything, but I can't do what you asked me to do." He said, "What?" I said, "I can't be a delegate for you at the convention." He said, "Why not?" I said, "Because I'm a Republican." (Laughter)
He laughed and said, "That's all right. If you'll do it for me, I'd like you to do it. Just go down and register as a Democrat and then, after I'm made president, you can do what you want to do, go back to being Republican or what." But I never was political. I just thought he would be great for the country at that time.
Tavis: What do you make of the fact, though, that, given your friendship, he didn't make it?
Williams: Well, I was there the night he was assassinated. Claudine and I were with Ethel and he had said that, when I leave the podium there, I'll wave which I generally do and then we'll meet over at The Factory, this disco restaurant, a very nice one in West Los Angeles. Of course, we never made it there. We went to the hospital and then it goes on after that.
We went back with the body the next day in the Air Force Two and I sang at the funeral a couple of days later, sang Battle Hymn of the Republic, then went to Washington on the train that took his body. You know, it was very tragic and it was very hard to write about it because it was something I'd gone through, but I didn't want to go through it again. But I figured that I had to, or I should, because it was really a large part of my life, in a way.
Tavis: I'm out of time here. If that was perhaps one of the more difficult things to write about, when you look back on your life now in this memoir, what do you take the most joy in having time to reflect on in this text?
Williams: Well, I think a lot of it has to do with that series again of my television show, the people that I had the opportunity to work with, to sing with, to laugh with, you know, to have jokes and laugh with Sammy Davis, Jr., for instance, who was a good friend. We had so much fun. He was on the show quite often and he was great.
The times in Vegas when I first opened Caesar's Palace in 1966 and all the years during the '60s when the Rat Pack were playing down the street at the Sands and I was up at Caesar's Palace. All of those years with the television and Vegas and doing concerts and making records, I loved reading about some of that myself. I wrote about Frank and Dean and Sammy.
Tavis: It's always tough talking to folk who've lived such full lives because you can't do justice to these memoirs. There's so much in it, so much more that I wish I could talk to Andy Williams about. I can't; I'm out of time.
But his new book is called Moon River and Me, the memoir finally from Andy Williams. He said when he came on the set that he'd never written a book before. I said that, after this one, you don't have to. You know, you've done a good job of covering the wonderful life you've lived.
Williams: Thank you, Tavis, very much.
Tavis: Glad to have you on.
Williams: I enjoyed talking to you.
Tavis: I enjoyed talking to you.
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