USA Today reports Andy Williams died last evening after a year long battle with bladder cancer at the age of 84.
There were certain things to look forward to at Christmas and watching the Andy Williams Christmas shows was one and hearing all his Christmas songs being played on the radio and in stores during the Christmas season.
Williams who was a "crooner" much like Perry Como had one of those distinctive voices you only had to hear about three seconds and you knew it was him.
That of course was when you could listen to a song and understand what was being sung without a lot of crashing and overbearing sound from the accompanying band or shrill, screaming or nonsensical pitter-patter lyrics.
Long gone unfortunately are the variety TV shows I grew with and of course that age of innocence in TV when someone once said of CBS-TV "they've killed all the green shows" referring to shows like The Beverly Hillbillies, Andy Griffith, Green Acres, Lassie and the like, real family shows in favor of All In The Family, Maude and so on leading up to the T & A era of shows like Charlie's Angels on ABC-TV.
There was no blood and gore, guys got shot in Westerns and you never saw where the bullet went in, and how did they fire so many shots from a six-shooter I always wondered as a kid. No vulgarity, networks didn't have to stand at the ready with a "bleep" button or delay switch during LIVE broadcasts in case some idiot said something or had a "wardrobe malfunction". Although I do remember well the streaker on the Oscars but the cameras were shooting waist level and up so we never saw his "short comings" as David Niven put it as he was on stage when the boo-de-aye bearing chap ran by.
Yep things were so much simpler back then, at least if you were a kid.
No wonder Conservatives in their own way would like to return America back to that time, and in many ways I agree with them and would like to say "Scotty beam me back".
