The Williams Brothers (3)

Before Andy Williams sang solo, he performed with his three older brothers, Bob, Dick, and Don, as The Williams Brothers. Born in Wall Lake, the sons of Jay and Florence Williams, the boys got their start by singing in a choir at the Presbyterian Church in Wall Lake. When Bob was 14 and Don was 11, they could already envision themselves as a quartet, just as soon as smaller brothers Dick, 8, and Andy, 6, were older. A year later the family moved to Des Moines, where the boys started to singing on local Des Moines radio.Don Williams recalls today, "We worked so hard. We had a show every morning at 8 a.m. on WHO, and on Saturday we were on the 'Barn Dance.' Sometimes we even had a Sunday show, and we practiced five hours daily." It was mid-July 1940 the family packed up its belongings, again, for the move to Chicago and "the break of a lifetime" - a year's contract with radio station WLS. The boys were told they would sing as a quartet but also have the chance to perform solos and duets on the air. From Chicago, the singing act and their parents moved to Cincinnati where the boys performed on radio station WLW, before they set off for Hollywood for a chance at the movies. In Los Angeles, the boys made their first professional recording, singing with Bing Crosby on the award-winning hit "Swinging on a Star" (1944). The Williams Brothers had been signed by MGM, but the studio loaned the group out for "specialty numbers" in movies produced at Warners, RKO and Republic studios. They appeared in "Janie" and "Kansas City Kitty," both in 1944, and "Ladies' Man" in 1947, the same year the quartet appeared with singing star Deanna Durbin in "Something in the Wind." It was during this time, that the Williams boys met singer/actress/comedienne Kay Thompson, at MGM. Thompson was then a vocal coach/vocal arranger at MGM asked the boys to join her and do an act, together. Don Williams recalls, "The act was so packed with entertainment that it was exhausting. We rehearsed eight hours a day for three months just to get one hour's worth of material." In addition to singing the brothers danced and did vignettes with Thompson, who did all the musical arrangements, with top ranked Bob Alton, of MGM, doing the choreography. "It was a very popular act," Don Williams says, and drew crowds wherever it played across the nation and overseas. In New York City, legendary columnist Walter Winchell "loved us," Williams says. "He was very taken with the act. He wrote about it every day, or at least it seemed he did." When the act ended its successful run in 1953, the brothers went their own ways to develop their own solo acts. Don Williams returned to Los Angeles, where he he found work on TV, singing on the Eddie Fisher and Nat King Cole television shows, as well as singing commercials and later opening the then brand new Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas, performing there for two years. (October 9, 1922 - December 30, 2022). Dick Williams landed on Broadway, before moving to Los Angeles where he continued singing, writing and conducting. Bob Williams got out of the business, joining the his father in real estate ventures in Branson. And, of course, Andy launched his own spectacular career in New York and continued to perform at his own Moon River Theater in Branson, MO. But when Andy had his popular network television show, all of the brothers continued to perform with him on his yearly Christmas specials.