| The Shadow of Your Smile | |
| Type: | album |
| Artist: | Andy Williams |
| Cover: | Williams-Shadow-2.jpg |
| Released: | April 1966 |
| Recorded: | 1966 |
| Length: | 34:18 |
| Label: | Columbia |
| Producer: | Robert Mersey[1] |
| Prev Title: | May Each Day |
| Prev Year: | 1966 |
| Next Title: | In the Arms of Love |
| Next Year: | 1966 |
The Shadow of Your Smile is the eighteenth studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams and was released in April 1966 by Columbia Records and included covers of "Michelle" and "Yesterday", the same pair of Beatles ballads that labelmate Johnny Mathis recorded for his 1966 album of the same name. For Williams these selections initiated a trend away from the traditional pop formula that his album output at Columbia up until this point had adhered to.
The Williams release made its first appearance on Billboard magazine's Top LP's chart in the issue dated May 14 of that year and remained on the album chart for 54 weeks, peaking at number six.[2] It entered the UK charts in July and spent four weeks there, reaching number 27.[3] The album received Gold certification from the Recording Industry Association of America on September 27, 1966.[4]
The A-side from this album, "Bye Bye Blues", "bubbled under" Billboards Hot 100, reaching number 127,[5] and got to number 18 on the magazine's Easy Listening (or Adult Contemporary) chart.[6]
The album was released on compact disc for the first time as one of two albums on one CD by Collectables Records on March 23, 1999, the other album being Williams's Columbia release from the spring of 1965, Andy Williams' Dear Heart.[7] It was also released as one of two albums on one CD by Sony Music Distribution on December 28, 1999, paired this time with Williams's Columbia album from the fall of 1962, Warm and Willing.[8] The Collectables CD was included in a box set entitled Classic Album Collection, Vol. 1, which contains 17 of his studio albums and three compilations and was released on June 26, 2001.[9]
William Ruhlmann of AllMusic wrote that this album "had a slower, more languorous feel than earlier Williams albums, and it had more vocal risk-taking." He described "notable changes in Williams' approach" that included the Beatles tracks and covers of two bossa nova songs by Antonio Carlos Jobim that "indicated that Williams was not content to simply turn out the same sort of album over and over, and that he was paying attention to the changes in popular music around him."
Billboard magazine described the album as "well produced and well performed."[10]
This album brought the sixth and final Grammy nomination that Williams received over the course of his career, this time in the category for Best Vocal Performance, Male. This nomination did not focus on the performance of a particular song but rather Williams's performance of the album as a whole. The winner was Frank Sinatra for the single "Strangers in the Night", a song that Williams went on to record for his 1967 album Born Free.[11]
From the liner notes for the original album:[1]