A newly recorded album, Andy Williams'
I Don't Remember Ever Growing Up was released in the U.K. in 2007 when the singer was 79 years old. It is a typical Williams collection in his familiar manner, finding him covering soft rock songs of relatively recent vintage in his inimitable smooth style over string arrangements, for the most part. Fans who have longed to hear him put his stamp on hits earlier recorded by Bryan Adams,
the Police,
Van Morrison,
Rod Stewart, and others will be pleased with his renditions of such songs as "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman," "Every Breath You Take" (in an arrangement similar to the Police's), "Have I Told You Lately," and "I Don't Want to Talk About It." Williams also throws in some older fare, including
the Eagles' "Desperado,"
Neil Sedaka's "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" (the slow version, of course) and the '60s movie song "The Shadow of Your Smile." Inevitably, it's necessary to say that his voice sounds good "for his age." In the upper registers, his tenor now tends toward a whine; his phrasing is sometimes not as precise, and his breath control is not always complete, so that he sometimes runs out of wind before the end of a phrase. But he really does sound good for a singer in his late seventies, and his fans, who are the only people who need be concerned about this collection, are likely to be forgiving.
