Roger Williams

This guy is a bit of an enigma to me. He plays piano, obviously. And he made hundreds, thousands probably, of recordings of popular and not-so-popular songs, played on piano. But his technique doesn’t sound all that impressive; it sounds like any reasonably competent pianist could play this stuff.

He didn’t have too many real big records; he put 23 songs into the top 100 between 1955 and 1969, 7 of which were in the top 40, and 3 of which were top 10.
I put 3 collections together to make this one, and part of it was from Roger Williams’ Greatest Hits, and part was from a short cassette collection called Autumn Leaves, and the rest was from a double album, the name of which escapes me at this moment. Apart from the cassette, which I bought new somewhere, the LPs are from Pyramid.

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Roger Williams:

• The Impossible Dream – The song comes from the play Man Of La Mancha, which was from Cervante’s Don Quixote. This is, as someone I’ve been living with has said, a song just made for histrionics. The hit version was by Jack Jones, who wasn’t given to great displays of drama, but for some reason I’ve always associated it with Robert Goulet, and many others have done it, like Jim Nabors, Ed Ames, The Temptations, etc. This version made the charts in the summer of ’68, 2 years after Jack Jones.
• A Taste Of Honey – The song is from 1960, and it was a pop standard. The Beatles recorded it on their first album, and Tony Bennett put it on the chart in 1964. Then Herb Alpert sped it up, and blew everybody away in 1965. This is a more languid version.
• Galveston – The town is in Texas, the song was by Glen Campbell, and that was in 1969. A wistful tale of a boy on the battlefield, dreaming about home and sweetheart. A minor hit for Rogers in the summer of ’69, and the last song he’d put on the chart.
• Wanting You – An early hit for Rogers, late 1955.
• Clair De Lune – This is Debussy, a piece that’s been popularized quite a bit. It’s actually the 3rd movement of his Bergamasque, which is a suite for piano.
• Tammy – This was a hit for Debbie Reynolds, and for The Ames Brothers, though I don’t have their version. I have a first cousin once removed named Tammis, but I don’t know if that counts. But here’s one: the comedian David Steinberg has (had?) a sister named Tammy, and I knew her growing up; she and her husband were casual friends of my parents, though ultimately they moved to LA, where we saw them during our visit in 1969. They had the first air conditioned car I’d ever been in.
• The High And The Mighty – A hit for Les Baxter.
• Liza – I’ve never known anyone named Liza. Never.
• September Song – I have this by Liberace.
• Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto #1 – This is the intro to the first movement of Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto (he wrote 3, but only one is ever played really). This is one of the most dramatic intros in the classical repertoire, but Williams takes the spunk out of it.
• The Shadow Of Your Smile – This was a pop standard in the 60s. But the highest it ever got on the charts was 93, and that was by Boots Randolph. Tony Bennett’s version only reached 95.
• Moon River – Of course he had to do Moon River, and of course it has to be here. It seems that this song was always associated most closely with Andy Williams, but Williams never put it on the chart. The song was a hit by composer Henry Mancini, and by Jerry Butler, whose version is all but forgotten. And in England it was a hit for Danny Williams, no relation. The song was the theme from Breakfast At Tiffany’s, and may be the ultimate pop ballad. It’s sure been recorded often enough.
• Dominique – A hit in 1964 for the Singing Nun, who I remember seeing on Ed Sullivan. It was about the Dominicans, and the original was sung in French. This is not sung at all.
• Cumana – I googled this and it seems that Cumana is a city in Venezuela. Well I’ve never been there, but one of my kids had a teacher in kindergarten whose name was Mrs. Venezuela, or at least it sounded like Mrs. Venezuela.
• I Left My Heart In San Francisco – A hit in the early 60’s for Tony Bennett, and it kind of became his signature. I was in San Francisco in 1969, but I didn’t leave my heart there; I was 12. I remember it was a way cool city, and I think I could go back there and get into a city like that – tons of character…
• Yesterday – The Beatles song, of course. This has to be on here, too.
• More – This is subtitled The Theme From Mondo Cane, because that’s what it was, the theme from Mondo Cane, which apparently was a very strange documentary released in 1962. The words were written later, though they are not on this version, which is instrumental. It’s a very attractive melody, and it’s way way more famous then the movie ever was. There must be thousands of versions (we’ve heard Catarena Valente), but the hit was an offbeat arrangement by Kai Winding.
• I Got Rhythm – An old song, from, like, 1930. It’s by George and Ira Gershwin, and, for what it’s worth, it was a hit for The Happenings in 1967.
• Roger’s Bumblebee – Rimsky-Korsakoff’s Flight Of The Bumblebee is probably the most oft-rendered-into-pop-format of any classical piece. It was a hit, as Bumble Boogie, by B. Bumble & The Stingers, but there were tons of versions. The Ventures did it as Bumblebee and claimed that they wrote it.
• Windmills Of Your Mind – Theme from the original The Thomas Crowne Affair, with Faye Dunaway and Steve McQueen (see it if you get the chance), a fact not mentioned in Whitburn. The original was by Noel Harrison, but the hit in NA, such as it was, was by Dusty Springfield.
• Autumn Leaves – The song that put Roger Williams on the map. It was indeed a hit in the autumn, and that was in 1955, when it went to number 1. There were 6 other version that made the charts, including Williams’ own 1965 remake, but none went higher than 41.
• Till – One of those great romantic songs. A hit in the autumn of 1957. I remember The Vogues’ version from 1968, and also done by Percy Faith, and by The Angels.
• Born Free – From the movie, this was Roger’s second biggest hit, reaching the top 10 at the end of 1966.
• Somewhere My Love – That’s how it’s titled on the label. But Whitburn’s book lists it as Lara’s Theme From Dr. Zhivago, and tells me that it was a hit, of sorts, in the summer of ’66. The real hit version was by Ray Conniff.
• The Way We Were – From the movie. This was a huge hit for Barbara Streisand.
• Try To Remember – Another 60s pop standard, all the crooners did it, and all the instrumentalists and arrangers, and this version was on the top 100 in the spring of ’65, when it reached 97, and other versions were by Ed Ames and The Brothers Four, and Gladys Knight & The Pips, whose version reached number 11 in 1975.
• Almost Paradise – One of his bigger hits, from the spring of ’57.
• Near You – Another big one, this one from the autumn of 1958.
• Theme From “Love Story” – I guess this is the theme from Love Story. It was a hit for Henry Mancini, oddly, because Mancini, king of the soundtrack, didn’t write this one.
• On A Clear Day You Can See Forever – Yet another 60s standard…
• Never My Love – The 1967 hit by The Association.
• Around The World – A big song in 1957, a hit for Victor Young, for Manovani, for Bing Crosby, but not for Roger Williams.
• Theme From “Black Orpheus” – aka A Day In The Life Of A Fool, a hit for Jack Jones in 1966.
• Stardust – He does a very slow take of this. Nat King Cole did this, and so did Billy Ward & The Dominoes, and so did Nino Tempo & April Stevens
• Gentle On My Mind – Some nice country / pop by John Harford, a hit by Glen Campbell, and by Dean Martin. Not much of a tune though.
• Maria – From West Side Story. From early 1962. I can’t remember knowing anyone named Maria.
• If You Go (Si Tu Partais) – I don’t know this one, and I don’t understand the French, unless I copied it down wrong. It should be si tu pars, if you go. As it is, partais is imperfect, and I don’t think it works.
• Alfie – From the movie, for which it was done by Cher, who had a small hit with it. But Dionne Warwick had a bigger hit.
• Teakwood Nocturne – There was a street called Teakwood in my hometown, but this song isn’t about that street.
• Amor – From winter, 1962. Ben E King did this.
• Love Theme From Romeo And Juliet – A huge hit for Henry Mancini in 1969
• Softly I Will Leave You – Such a beautiful song; I said in the entry under Frank Sinatra, and I still believe it.