In Tune With His Image

Andy Williams got the idea for his America the Beautiful tour--which touches down Sunday and Monday at the Hollywood Bowl--two years ago when he performed at the Statue of Liberty celebration in New York.

Sitting in the living room of his Hollywood Hills home--with a doorbell that chimes his signature hit “Moon River”--Williams says he had been looking for a theme for a tour. “I was wondering what I could do that would top my annual Christmas tour and have as much appeal as Christmas and I thought maybe America.”

But the show isn’t just flag-waving. “It’s American music that has influenced my life,” says the 57-year-old Williams. “It will include hit records and movie themes I’ve done, and also big band sounds, gospel music and tributes to Irving Berlin and George M. Cohan.”

The still-trim entertainer knows the show will reinforce his all-American image, and says that’s fine by him. In fact, he cheerfully admits that “blandness” is part of his appeal.

“I don’t think I have a Pat Boone or Johnny Mann image--I’m not quite that white bread,” he says. “But I’m not (a sophisticate like) Frank Sinatra either. I think I am on stage what I was on TV--a family kind of guy.”

Williams, who hosted his own variety show for NBC for seven years, says he hasn’t been able to get a network commitment for a Christmas special this year. But he doesn’t seem bitter.

“The networks don’t want variety, and I don’t blame them. Why break up their schedule and put on a show that isn’t going to get a rating? You could put Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Burt Reynolds and Liza Minnelli on one special and put it up against ‘Murder, She Wrote,’ and it’s not going to get much of a rating.”

Williams also seems resigned to the decline of his recording career. The crooner landed 15 gold albums from 1962 to 1972, but these days he doesn’t even have a record deal.

“You’re not supposed to sell records when you’re 60 years old,” he says. “There’s an audience out there for me, for Sinatra, but nobody’s been able to figure out whether that audience will buy records--or whether they even have record players anymore. It just doesn’t go on forever at the same intensity. I sold records like crazy, but that period is past.”

Williams doesn’t seem unduly concerned. “I figure I can do a tour in the summer and a tour in the winter and then play golf the rest of the time.”