You Lay So Easy on My Mind | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | November 1974 [1] | |||
Recorded | June 18–19, 1974 September 18–19, 1974 [2] | |||
Genre |
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Length | 29:18 | |||
Label | Columbia | |||
Producer | Billy Sherrill [4] | |||
Andy Williams chronology | ||||
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Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
Allmusic | [3] |
Billboard | Top Album Pick [1] |
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [5] |
You Lay So Easy on My Mind is the thirty-fourth studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams, released in November 1974 by Columbia Records. [1] The idea for this LP was mentioned in an interview with Williams in the November 3, 1973, issue of Billboard magazine that emphasized his desire to move away from recording albums of Easy Listening covers of hits by other artists, noting that he was "planning an album to be cut in Nashville with Columbia's high-flying country-pop producer, Billy Sherrill." The article coincided with the release of his first attempt to shift directions, Solitaire , which performed poorly. A return to the Easy Listening hits formula, The Way We Were , followed in the spring of 1974 but failed to even chart, so this next attempt to eschew soft rock songs leaned heavily on Country hits.
The album made its first appearance on the Billboard Top LP's & Tapes chart in the issue dated December 28, 1974, and remained there for four weeks, peaking at number 150. [6] The album was released in the UK on February 14, 1975, and on March 1, 1976, the British Phonographic Industry awarded it with Silver certification for sales of 60,000 units. [7]
The first song from the album to be released as a single by Williams was "Another Lonely Song", which entered Billboard magazine's list of the 40 most popular Easy Listening songs of the week in the US in the issue dated September 21, 1974, and stayed on the chart for eight weeks, peaking at number 29. [8] "Cry Softly" entered that same chart in the April 12, 1975, issue and reached number 20 over the course of six weeks, [8] and the title track from the album entered the UK singles chart the following month, on May 31, for a seven-week stay that took the song to number 32. [9]
You Lay So Easy on My Mind was released on compact disc for the first time as one of two albums on one CD by Collectables Records on February 19, 2002, the other album being Williams's Columbia release from the summer of 1975, The Other Side of Me . [10] Collectables included this CD in a box set entitled Classic Album Collection, Vol. 2, which contains 15 of his studio albums and two compilations and was released on November 29, 2002. [11] It was also released as one of two albums on one CD by Sony Music Distribution on June 21, 2004, paired this time with Williams's album from 1980, Let's Love While We Can . [12]
Billboard gave the album a positive review, noting that "Williams has always tried to adapt to the times, and his going Nashville is another step in that direction." [1]
From the liner notes for the 2002 CD: [2]
Bobby G. Rice made it to number three on the Country singles chart in Billboard magazine with "You Lay So Easy on My Mind". [13] The highest charting version of "I Love You So Much It Hurts" was the recording by Jimmy Wakely that went to number one on the magazine's list of Most Played Juke Box Folk Records. [14] Olivia Newton-John reached the top spot on the magazine's pop [15] and Easy Listening [16] charts with "I Honestly Love You", and "A Mi Esposa con Amor (To My Wife with Love)" by Sonny James got as high as number four on the Country singles chart. [17]
Tammy Wynette had number one Country hits with "Another Lonely Song" [18] and "My Elusive Dreams", [19] the latter being a duet with David Houston. Jim Croce's "I'll Have to Say I Love You in a Song" went to number one Easy Listening [20] and number 9 pop. [21] "I Love My Friend" by Charlie Rich made it to the top spot on both the Country [22] and Easy Listening charts, [23] and Nancy Ames made it to number 18 Easy Listening [24] and number 95 pop [25] with "Cry Softly".
From the liner notes for the original album: [4]
"I Honestly Love You" is a song recorded by Olivia Newton-John and released in 1974 on the album Long Live Love in the United Kingdom and If You Love Me, Let Me Know in the United States. The song became a worldwide pop hit, her first number-one single in the United States and Canada. The single was first released in Australia as "I Love You, I Honestly Love You", as per its chorus. The song was written by Jeff Barry and Australian singer and composer Peter Allen. The latter recorded it around the same time for his album Continental American.
"Softly, as I Leave You" is a popular Italian song, originally titled Piano, composed by Tony De Vita with Italian lyrics by Giorgio Calabrese, and English lyrics by Hal Shaper.
"Love Theme from The Godfather" is an instrumental theme from the 1972 film The Godfather, composed by Nino Rota. The piece was lyricized in English by Larry Kusik into "Speak Softly, Love", a popular song released in 1972. The highest-charting rendition of either version was by vocalist Andy Williams, who took "Speak Softly Love" to number 34 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 and number seven on its Easy Listening chart.
"I Love You So Much It Hurts" is a song written and recorded by Floyd Tillman in 1948. His version reached number 6 on the Folk Best Seller charts and spent a total of nineteen weeks on the chart.
"I Love My Friend" is a 1974 single written by Billy Sherrill and Norro Wilson and recorded by Charlie Rich. "I Love My Friend" was Rich's sixth number one on the country chart. The single remained at number one for one week and spent a total of ten weeks on the chart. "I Love My Friend" peaked at number 24 on the Billboard Hot 100 and reached number one on the Easy Listening chart.
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.
Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head is the twenty-fifth studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams and was released in the spring of 1970 by Columbia Records. Williams was less focused on covering recent hits on this project and instead selected several songs from the singer-songwriter genre. The concept for the album came from Mason Williams, who contacted producer Dick Glasser about co-producing an album that would give Williams's fans a medley of songs that did more than just highlight the most familiar parts of popular songs but rather focus on a unifying theme or storyline of songs that were not necessarily hit records. Billboard magazine opined that the album "may well be titled 'A Journey Through Life.' Through carefully selected songs it conveys a message of dreams, hopes, reality, frustrations and ultimate truth."
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."
Love Story is the twenty-seventh studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams that was released on February 3, 1971, by Columbia Records. This was another in his series of cover albums, but the title track, subtitled "Where Do I Begin", was the one song included that he originated.
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.
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".
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".
Solitaire is the thirty-first studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams, released in the fall of 1973 by Columbia Records and was an attempt to move away from his formulaic series of recent releases that relied heavily on songs that other artists had made popular.
The Way We Were is the thirty-second studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams, released in the spring of 1974 by Columbia Records and was a return to singing songs that his audience was already familiar with after Solitaire, his previous LP that was less reliant on covers of recent pop hits, did not perform well.
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.
Let's Love While We Can is the thirty-seventh studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams, released in the U.K. in 1980 by CBS Records. For this project Williams eschews covering well-known pop hits and standards and relies mostly on original or lesser-known country songs.
Andy Williams' Greatest Hits Vol. 2 is a compilation album by American pop singer Andy Williams that was released in June 1973 by Columbia Records. This collection follows in the footsteps of its predecessor, Andy Williams' Greatest Hits, in that it is not limited to his biggest and most recent hit singles, although his final two US Top 40 entries were included. It also has an album track not released as a single, a couple of hits from his time with Cadence Records, two other singles that could have been included on the first volume, and two Easy Listening chart entries that never made the Billboard Hot 100.
B Sides and Rarities is a compilation album by the American pop singer Andy Williams that was released by Collectables Records on May 27, 2003. Although the collection starts with two 1947 recordings by Kay Thompson and The Williams Brothers, the rest of the material comes from his time at Columbia Records and includes covers of contemporary hits as well as lesser-known material from the songwriters of "Can't Get Used to Losing You", "Home Lovin' Man" and "Moon River".
You've Got a Friend is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on August 11, 1971, by Columbia Records. The phrase "Today's Great Hits" can be found above the title on both sides of the record jacket as well as both sides of the LP label as if to emphasize that this is essentially an album covering songs that were recently on the charts. This was a common practice of many vocalists of the period, so much so in fact that fellow Columbia artist Andy Williams also released an album titled You've Got a Friend in August 1971 on which he coincidentally covers seven of the 11 tracks that Mathis recorded for this album.
16 Most Requested Songs: Encore! is a compilation album by American pop singer Andy Williams that was released by Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings on May 16, 1995.