Happy Heart (album)

Last updated
Happy Heart
Williams-Happy-2.jpg
Studio album by
Released1969
Recorded1969
Genre
Length36:59
Label Columbia
Producer Jerry Fuller [2]
Andy Williams chronology
The Andy Williams Sound of Music
(1969)
Happy Heart
(1969)
Get Together with Andy Williams
(1969)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svg [1]
Billboard Spotlight Pick [3]

Happy Heart is the twenty-third studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams, released in the spring of 1969 by Columbia Records [1] and continued the trend of his recent albums in relying exclusively on contemporary material. This particular project eschewed offerings from Broadway and Hollywood that had been predominant on his LPs with Columbia.

Contents

The album made its first appearance on the Top LP's chart in the issue of Billboard magazine dated May 17, 1969, and remained there for 23 weeks, peaking at number nine. [4] It entered the UK album chart on July 26 of that year and reached number 22 over the course of 10 weeks, [5] and the Recording Industry Association of America awarded the album Gold certification on August 20 of that year. [6]

The title song from the album had been released as a single that March and entered the Easy Listening chart in the issue of Billboard dated April 5, 1969, eventually spending 14 weeks there and two of those weeks at number one. [7] The song entered the Billboard Hot 100 one week later and reached number 22 over the course of 11 weeks. [8] In the UK it entered the singles chart for the week of May 10 that year and stayed there for 10 weeks, peaking at number 19. [5]

The album was released on compact disc for the first time as one of two albums on one CD by Collectables Records on March 23, 1999, the other album being Williams's Columbia release from the spring of 1968, Honey . [9] This same pairing was also released as two albums on one CD by Sony Music Distribution in 2000. [10] The Collectables CD was included in a box set titled Classic Album Collection, Vol. 1, which contains 17 of his studio albums and three compilations and was released on June 26, 2001. [11]

Reception

Billboard magazine wrote, "Andy Williams has taken the best of the current hits and in his own warm, sophisticated style makes them sound completely new and exciting. The program is a harvest of first rate material." [3]

Track listing

Side one

  1. "For Once in My Life" (Ron Miller, Orlando Murden) – 2:54
  2. "Where's the Playground, Susie?" (Jimmy Webb) – 2:51
  3. "My Way" (Paul Anka, Claude François, Jacques Revaux) – 3:43
  4. "Wichita Lineman" (Webb) – 2:55
  5. "Happy Heart" (Jackie Rae, James Last) – 3:15
  6. "Gentle on My Mind" (John Hartford) – 3:10

Side two

  1. "Didn't We?" (Webb) – 3:27
  2. "Memories" (Billy Strange, Mac Davis) – 3:47
  3. "Little Green Apples" (Bobby Russell) – 4:03
  4. "Here, There and Everywhere" (John Lennon, Paul McCartney) – 3:15
  5. "Abraham, Martin and John" (Dick Holler) – 3:43

Personnel

From the liner notes for the original album: [2]

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 "Happy Heart". allmusic.com. Rovi Corporation. Retrieved 9 October 2010.
  2. 1 2 (1969) Happy Heart by Andy Williams [album jacket]. New York: Columbia Records CS 9844.
  3. 1 2 "Album Reviews". Billboard . 1969-05-10. p. 106.
  4. Whitburn 2010 , p. 844.
  5. 1 2 "Andy Williams". Official Charts. Retrieved 20 April 2016.
  6. "Gold & Platinum". riaa.com. Retrieved 9 April 2017. Type Andy Williams in the Search box and press Enter.
  7. Whitburn 1993 , p. 256.
  8. Whitburn 1999 , p. 702.
  9. "Honey/Happy Heart". allmusic.com. Rovi Corporation. Retrieved 2 October 2010.[ dead link ]
  10. "Honey/Happy Heart by Andy Williams". rateyourmusic.com. Retrieved 2 October 2010.
  11. "Classic Album Collection, Vol. 1 – Andy Williams". allmusic.com. Rovi Corporation. Retrieved 6 May 2011.

Related Research Articles

<i>Andy Williams Greatest Hits</i> 1970 compilation album by Andy Williams

Andy Williams' Greatest Hits is a compilation album by American pop singer Andy Williams that was released in early 1970 by Columbia Records. It was not, however, as its title might suggest, strictly a hit singles compilation, although some of his biggest songs since joining Columbia were included. A couple of selections were never released as singles by Williams, and his signature song, "Moon River", was released in the 7-inch single format but only for jukeboxes. His six Cadence singles that made the Top 10 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 are passed over for the inclusion of his number 11 hit from that label, "The Hawaiian Wedding Song", and 17 of his Columbia recordings that made the Hot 100 up until 1970 are left out here in favor of "Charade", which spent its one week on the chart at number 100.

<i>Danny Boy and Other Songs I Love to Sing</i> 1962 studio album by Andy Williams

Danny Boy and Other Songs I Love to Sing is the eighth studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams and was released early in 1962 by Columbia Records. This was his first project after leaving Cadence Records, where his albums each had a specific theme, and his first in a series of LPs that covered songs established on stage and screen and other hits from the pop chart and the Great American Songbook. This trend would not be interrupted until his 1966 album The Shadow of Your Smile hinted at a shift toward contemporary material with its inclusion of songs first recorded by the Beatles.

<i>Warm and Willing</i> 1962 studio album by Andy Williams

Warm and Willing is the tenth studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams and was released in 1962 by Columbia Records. Allmusic's William Ruhlmann explained that Williams and producer Robert Mersey "followed the Sinatra concept-album formula of creating a consistent mood, in this case a romantic one, and picking material mostly from the Great American Songbook of compositions written for Broadway musicals in the 1920s and '30s by the likes of George and Ira Gershwin, then giving them slow, string-filled arrangements over which Williams could croon in his breathy, intimate tenor voice."

<i>Days of Wine and Roses and Other TV Requests</i> 1963 studio album by Andy Williams

Days of Wine and Roses and Other TV Requests is the eleventh studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams and was released in April 1963 by Columbia Records following his first season as host of his variety series, The Andy Williams Show. The LP has a studio recording of the closing theme from the show, "May Each Day", and continues the format of his previous Columbia releases by including songs from the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s.

<i>The Great Songs from "My Fair Lady" and Other Broadway Hits</i> 1964 studio album by Andy Williams

The Great Songs from "My Fair Lady" and Other Broadway Hits is the fifteenth studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams and was released in September 1964 by Columbia Records, one month before the premiere of the film version of My Fair Lady starring Audrey Hepburn.

<i>Andy Williams Dear Heart</i> 1965 studio album by Andy Williams

Andy Williams' Dear Heart is the sixteenth studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams and was released in the spring of 1965 by Columbia Records and was the last of his Columbia releases that remained exclusively within the realm of traditional pop. After covering two Beatles hits on his next non-holiday studio album, The Shadow of Your Smile, he would try out samba music on In the Arms of Love, aim for a much younger crowd with "Music to Watch Girls By" on Born Free, and focus more on contemporary material on subsequent albums.

<i>The Shadow of Your Smile</i> (Andy Williams album) 1966 studio album by Andy Williams

The Shadow of Your Smile is the eighteenth studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams and was released in April 1966 by Columbia Records and included covers of "Michelle" and "Yesterday", the same pair of Beatles ballads that labelmate Johnny Mathis recorded for his 1966 album of the same name. For Williams these selections initiated a trend away from the traditional pop formula that his album output at Columbia up until this point had adhered to.

<i>In the Arms of Love</i> (album) 1966 studio album by Andy Williams

In the Arms of Love is the nineteenth studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams and was released on December 19, 1966, by Columbia Records and was the last of twelve consecutive Williams studio LPs produced by Robert Mersey.

<i>Born Free</i> (Andy Williams album) 1967 studio album by Andy Williams

Born Free is the twentieth studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams and was released on April 10, 1967, by Columbia Records and includes half a dozen songs associated with movies or musicals. Two of these tracks, however, originated in the scores of the films indicated on the album jacket but had lyrics added later: the melody for "Strangers in the Night" was written for A Man Could Get Killed, and "Somewhere My Love" began as "Lara's Theme" from Doctor Zhivago.

<i>Love, Andy</i> 1967 studio album by Andy Williams

Love, Andy is the twenty-first studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams, released on October 16, 1967, by Columbia Records to coincide with the NBC special of the same name, which aired on November 6. The LP had a mix of covers of old and recent hits that included two songs from the 1940s that also had chart success in 1966 via Chris Montez: "The More I See You" and "There Will Never Be Another You".

<i>Honey</i> (Andy Williams album) 1968 studio album by Andy Williams

Honey is the twenty-second studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams, released in the spring of 1968 by Columbia Records. In reviewing the LP William Ruhlmann of Allmusic traced the progression of the Williams formula, noting that "he had been drawing on the recent hit parade for some of his material for years. But Honey marked his complete crossover to such an approach. Where earlier Williams albums had been a canny mix of movie songs, standards, pop hits, and foreign -- especially French -- material, ten of Honey's 11 tracks were songs that had been Top 40 hits in the last two years."

<i>Get Together with Andy Williams</i> 1969 studio album by Andy Williams

Get Together with Andy Williams is the twenty-fourth studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams which was released on October 6, 1969, by Columbia Records and contained covers of recent hits. The one new song was "You Are", which was written by Mac Davis.

<i>The Andy Williams Show</i> (album) 1970 studio album by Andy Williams

The Andy Williams Show is the twenty-sixth studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams that was released in the fall of 1970 by Columbia Records. In his review on AllMusic.com, William Ruhlmann writes that "The Andy Williams Show LP was not a soundtrack recording from the TV series, and it was not really a live album, although it gets categorized as such. What appears to be the case is that Columbia Records took a group of Williams' studio recordings, most of them made during the summer of 1970 and consisting of his versions of recent soft rock hits, and added a lot of canned applause along with some of the kind of musical interludes used to usher numbers on and off on the show, including bits of its "Moon River" theme music at the start and the finish."

<i>Youve Got a Friend</i> (Andy Williams album) 1971 studio album by Andy Williams

You've Got a Friend is the twenty-eighth studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams, released in August 1971 by Columbia Records. The album bears a striking resemblance to the Johnny Mathis album You've Got a Friend released that same month. Besides sharing their name, the two albums are both made up of covers of easy listening hits of the time, with 11 songs each, and the two albums have seven songs in common that are positioned in a similar order.

<i>Love Theme from "The Godfather"</i> (album) 1972 studio album by Andy Williams

Love Theme from "The Godfather" is the twenty-ninth studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams, released on March 21, 1972, by Columbia Records. The two new songs on what was otherwise another LP of covers of hits by other artists were the title track and "Music from Across the Way", which came from the songwriters behind his recent hits "Happy Heart" and "(Where Do I Begin) Love Story".

<i>Alone Again (Naturally)</i> (album) 1972 studio album by Andy Williams

Alone Again (Naturally) is the thirtieth studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams, released in September 1972 by Columbia Records and mainly consisting of songs originated by other artists. For its release in the UK, the album was titled The First Time Ever (I Saw Your Face), and three of the songs were replaced with the 7-inch single tracks "Who Was It?" and "Marmalade, Molasses & Honey" and a recording that was not released on vinyl in the U.S., "If You're Gonna Break Another Heart".

<i>The Other Side of Me</i> (Andy Williams album) 1975 studio album by Andy Williams

The Other Side of Me is the thirty-fifth studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams, released in the summer of 1975 by Columbia Records and including the 1973 recording of "Solitaire" from his album of the same name alongside 10 original recordings, four of which were also by "Solitaire" composer Neil Sedaka. After unsuccessful attempts to leave behind the formulaic album genre of easy listening covers of pop hits, The Other Side of Me offered a compromise by filling half of the sides with material that was popularized by other artists and the other half with either new or obscure selections.

<i>To You Sweetheart, Aloha</i> 1959 studio album by Andy Williams

To You Sweetheart, Aloha is the fourth studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams and was released late in the summer of 1959 by Cadence Records. This, his fourth LP for the label, has a Hawaiian theme that coincides with the admission of the 50th of the United States.

<i>Andy Williams Newest Hits</i> 1966 compilation album by Andy Williams

Andy Williams' Newest Hits is a compilation album by American pop singer Andy Williams that was released early in 1966 by Columbia Records and was the first LP to compile the singer's Columbia material. Seven of the 12 tracks had reached the charts in Billboard magazine, and another had been released as a single in the UK. Three album cuts were also included along with a recent B-side.

<i>The Very Best of Andy Williams</i> (2009 album) 2009 compilation album by Andy Williams

The Very Best of Andy Williams is a compilation album by American pop singer Andy Williams that was released in the UK on October 5th, 2009. A note from Williams inside the CD booklet explains that the album "was put together to coincide with my memoir Moon River and Me, published by Orion Press. It includes many of the songs that you made hits. I truly appreciate that, and I hope you enjoy the songs we selected for this CD." This compilation includes recordings that either charted in the UK but not in the US or charted much higher on the UK singles chart than they did on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US. It entered the UK albums chart on October 17, 2009, and reached number 10 during its six weeks there.

References