Can't Help Falling in Love/Home Lovin' Man

BGO's 2015 two-fer combines Can't Help Falling in Love and Home Lovin' Man, two albums Andy Williams released in the U.K. in the early '70s. Can't Help Falling in Love is a reconfiguration of the 1970 U.S. album Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head, while Home Lovin' Man contained most of the 1971 LP Love Story. The titles and track sequences changed for the British market, but they're both examples of Williams' easy listening MOR of the early '70s. He's tackling a fair amount of material that seems relatively ambitious on paper -- progressive country-folk singer/songwriters including Tim Hardin, John Hartford, Kris Kristofferson, Joni Mitchell, and Joe South -- and he also finds room for George Harrison, Paul Williams & Roger Nichols, Paul Simon, and Elton John & Bernie Taupin, but this is all extravagantly produced, string-saturated soft pop, the kind that will seem like a relic of a TV variety show to listeners of a certain age. This, of course, is its appeal: it's the sound of the mainstream adapting to the paisley fashions of the '70s, and while it's stiff and awkward, it's not without its period charm. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine