The Baby Boomer generation is fond of re-inventing its history and self-mythologising itself to the extent that you’d think they were all at Woodstock or burning down the Bastille and that the music of the Beatles was thought far too ‘square’. In reality, although my parents were thankfully a bit older than the typical boomers, I remember that the soundtrack to the late 60s and early 70s was not so much Hendrix and company but Neil Diamond and Andy Williams whose records are indelibly imprinted on my brain. In ‘cool’ retrospect Neil Diamond is now so trendy that he even played Glastonbury. BBC4 just showed a documentary about Andy Williams’ duets on his NBC TV show which featured all kinds of luminaries such as Judy Garland, Aretha Franklin, Johnny Cash and many others.
It was good to see the man himself introducing the clips. The one I enjoyed most was his collaboration with Simon and Garfunkel. I can’t help but imagine that these two are a couple of the most unlikeable, dysfunctional individuals ever to come to public recognition — at least their public personas anyway. However, there’s no disputing that they made some fantastic records and Williams joined them in a threesome to perform perhaps my favourite — ‘Scarborough Fair/Canticle’. Simon’s guitar accompaniment was beautifully simple and Williams’ voice perfectly complemented Garfunkel’s pitch. It was quite lovely and showed how adaptable Williams was as he was soon shown doing a bit of R&B with Ray Charles.