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Editorial Reviews

Collectables Records' Classic Album Collection, Vol. 1 gathers together ten twofer CDs the label has issued between 1999 and 2001, each containing two Andy Williams albums, for a total of 20 LPs in one black box with a running time of 11 hours. The first five CDs cover the artist's 1956-61 tenure at Cadence Records in total. In fact, there is some repetition, since the albums Andy Williams, Andy Williams' Best, and Million Seller Songs were compilations to begin with. Hits like "Canadian Sunset" turn up as many as three times. The Cadence albums tend to be records with themes -- the Hawaiian collection To You Sweetheart, Aloha, the album of sacred music The Village of St. Bernadette, and the French song set Under Paris Skies, as well as the self-explanatory Andy Williams Sings Rodgers & Hammerstein and Andy Williams Sings Steve Allen. There is much valuable material here, with a focus on diversity, as if label head Archie Bleyer was trying to create for Williams the kind of well-rounded catalog Decca's Jack Kapp created for Bing Crosby. The remaining five discs contain some, but not all, of Williams' 1960s albums for Columbia Records. It's not clear why, for example, his Columbia debut, Danny Boy and Other Songs I Love to Sing, or the commercial breakthrough Moon River & Other Great Movie Themes have been excluded. (That's right, 237 tracks and no "Moon River"!) But the albums that are here chronicle Williams' popular mastery of movie theme songs and his movement into the contemporary pop of the late 1960s. Nine of these ten albums went gold. At a $100 price point upon release, the box was a good bargain for Williams fans who hadn't bought the CDs separately earlier. And the Vol. 1 tag acknowledged there was more to come. William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide

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