1964 Andy Williams – A Fool Never Learns
Andy Williams reached the top ten on the Hot 100 every year from 1956 to 1959. He continued to do well on the Adult Contemporary (AC) chart in the sixties, but was lucky to even reach the top forty on the Hot 100 until Can’t Get Used To Losing You took him back up to #2 in 1963. He also had a hit that year with a vocal version of the theme song from The Days Of Wine And Roses, and perhaps that led him to record another theme song late in the year.
The 1963 film Charade starred Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. The theme song was written by the same pair that wrote the theme song for The Days Of Wine And Roses (Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer).
Henry Mancini released the instrumental from the film as a single that first charted December 7, 1963. The next month, Andy released a vocal version of the theme song. Henry’s single peaked at only #36 on the Hot 100 and reached #15 on the AC chart.
Andy’s single did not do well at all. It spent one week at #100 and then vanished.
It turns out that disk jockeys had ignored the record label and turned the single over and played the B-side, A Fool Never Learns. It entered the top forty a week after Charade fell off the chart and eventually reached #13 on the Hot 100 and #4 on the AC chart.
They nominated the song for an Academy Award for Best Original Song and perhaps in response, Sammy Kaye released another vocal version of the song. The result? #36 on the Hot 100 and #10 on the AC chart.
The Days Of Wine And Roses won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, but Charade lost out to Call Me Irresponsible.
While Andy was on television weekly and continued recording new music, thanks to the British Invasion and the growing popularity of rock music, it would be seven long years before he reached the top twenty on the Hot 100 again. He did, however, have a seemingly endless string of hits on the AC chart that continued into 1976 (including four singles that topped that chart). He also had seven top ten hits on the UK chart.
Bladder cancer killed Andy in 2012. He was 84 years old.
Thanks to changes in the chart that reflect streaming of songs, Andy has reached the top ten on the Hot 100 every year in December since 2018 with his 1963 Christmas single It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Williams
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Williams_discography
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fool_Never_Learns
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