Audio Autopsy, 1987: The Williams Brothers "Two Stories" Album, Warner Bros.

Part of a generational singing family, these Williams Brothers started out as teen idols. As they grew, so did their musical reputation & respect. Just ask Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty's Heartbreakers.

Necessary Differentiation

The 20th century show-biz firmament was filled with stars who, genetically anyway, were forced to be known as “The Williams Brothers” (apparently none of them could foresee an internet with a helpful identifier called Wikipedia, rendered muddled by housing several groups with the same name). So as not to clutter this page with “not to be confused with”s, we’ll pass out the name tags now:

The Williams Brothers

The Willliams Brothers is a traditional Black gospel group from Jackson, Mississippi, who began in 1960, and are still going! That should make it easy to tell them apart from the subject of our article here….except these Williams Brothers once spent time on Warner Bros. Records, just like our former teeny-bopper Williams Bros! OK, we can do this! Here are those fine singers, The Williams Brothers, who, with various members through the decades, have released some 2 dozen albums:

The Williams Brothers from 1997 and their album, Still Standing, on Blackberry Records, “I’m Too Close,” featuring Stevie Wonder, who produced:

The Williams Brothers

The Williams Brothers (Bob, Don, Dick, and Andy Williams) formed a singing quartet in the mid-1930s in Wall Lake, Iowa. The act broke up in 1951, but not before reaching a fair amount of fame with their singing on radio, on record, and in nightclubs and films. In fact, they can be heard on Bing Crosby’s 1944 hit, “Swinging on a Star”:

The Williams Brothers (Andy and David)

Don Williams passed away December 30, 2022 at age 100. Along with singing with Andy and his other two brothers (particularly on Andy’s TV Christmas specials for many years), he was an agent and manager. His client list included Mary Tyler Moore, and country/pop singers, Ray Stevens and Roger Miller.

Don’s twin boys, Andrew Williams and David Williams, were born on February 22, 1959, in Henderson, Nevada, and they grew up in “The Valley,” the San Fernando Valley/L.A. suburb of Sherman Oaks (with a dog, Heathcliff, who had to put up with 4 cats!). They were 14 when they taped an episode of The Partridge Family, called “Two for the Show,” in that sitcom’s fourth season. Hilarity no doubt ensued when the singing twins both managed to fall for Susan Dey’s “Laurie” character. A clip:

Things moved quickly for the twins as they got signed to Kapp/MCA Records for a 1973 album called Meet Andy and David Williams:

Produced by Jackie Mills (also a jazz drummer), the sessions were held at Mills’ newly-acquired Larrabee Sound Studios in W. Hollywood. Mills bought the studio in 1969 from original founders, songwriters, Carole King and Gerry Goffin.

The album was arranged by fellow veteran pop arrangers, Artie Butler (now 80) and Al Capps (who arranged and produced for the boys’ Uncle Andy, Liza, Cher, The Osmonds, among many others), the lads lay down a sugary confection of sweet pop and jaunty bouncers.

Highlights include Bacharach and David’s “Make it Easy on Yourself,” Carole King’s “Satisfied,” the Paul Williams/Roger Nichols Carpenters cover, “I Won’t Last a Day Without You,” plus nine others.

They cobbled together a fan club, too, and once issued this special, rare Fan Club record (recorded in October 1973), featuring a snippet of them singing (phonetically) in Japanese when they toured overseas with Uncle Andy:

Later in 1973, their follow-up album, One More Time, was released on MCA Records. Interestingly enough, in the short months between Album 1 and Album 2, Kapp Records folded, and MCA simply incorporated Kapp’s roster into the parent MCA (re-numbering and re-issuing The Williams’ debut…because cataloguing):

At some point, the boys ended up on Barnaby Records, as distributed by Janus/GRT Records. They had a “bubbling-under” hit, “What’s Your Name,” that found its way to #92 on Billboard’s Hot 100 in 1974. It was a #7 hit for Don and Juan a dozen years earlier, as written by the “Juan” of the duo, Claude aka “Sonny” Johnson:

Andy and David’s similar arrangement was produced by the “teen mafia” of Mike Curb and Michael Lloyd (who made a ‘70s living producing other Tiger Beat denizens like Leif Garrett, Shaun Cassidy, and The Osmonds), and arranged by longtime Frank Sinatra-arranger, Don Costa (who also discovered Paul Anka). This might’ve been the first single shipped with a promotional tube of Clearasil!

A closer look reveals that Uncle Andy actually founded Barnaby in 1963 after he bought out the soon-to-be shuttered Cadence Records, the label on which he recorded prior to his eventually successful decades on Columbia.

Uncle Andy named the label “Barnaby” after his dog, Barnaby (the Williams family loves animals!), and he used it to release the previously unreleased recordings of many artists, including The Everly Brothers….yes, brothers, but also brothers whom The Williams Brothers were clearly inspired by, especially evident in their ‘80s recordings.

And, yes, both sets of brothers, Everly and Williams, were (in separate decades, granted) on the label of the Brothers Warner! Two other family threads: Several unreleased Cadence records of Ray Stevens were eventually released by Uncle Andy on his new Barnaby….brother Don (our Andy & David’s father) ended up as Stevens’ manager. Plus, Uncle Andy’s Barnaby (the label, not the dog) also issued albums, in the ‘60s, of then-wife Claudine Longet.

1979

A 20-year-old David, in 1979, recognized that he was gay. Some later songs (in the late-’80s) began to reflect the anger of facing homophobic injustice, as well as other themes that can resonate with both gay and heterosexual fans.

David spoke to The Advocate in 1994, having gained the emotional support of both Andy and Don, their father: “I’m [coming out] not just for my own good, but also for other people,” he explained at the time. [Gay kids] are stuck in a world where their only option is to hide who they are, and they wind up hating themselves. Then, when people who are living positive, productive lives come out, these kids realize that society has been lying to them about being gay.

“I think it is infuriating for people with heart to see discrimination against any segment of society,” Andrew continued. At the time, he lavished praise on Nirvana’s recently-passed Kurt Cobain and the Lemonheads’ Evan Dando for their pro-gay lyrics. “I think that the more heterosexuals stand up with the gay movement, the stronger the fight against those who would oppress the gay community will be.”

Bro to Bro: Williams Brothers to Warner Brothers

In the early 1980s, Andy and David were in their early 20s, and their careers began to take a more behind-the-scenes focus, but they remained together: They backed up several artists (on-stage, as well as in-studio), including T-Bone Burnett (on U.S. and European tours), Brian Setzer, The Plimsouls, Joe Ely, the Cruzados, and others.

From his 1983 Warner Bros. album, Proof Through the Night, and featuring original Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers drummer, Stan Lynch, here’s T-Bone’s “Stunned,” featuring Andy and David on background vocals:

That same year, Andy and David contributed backing vocals on The Plimsouls’ Everywhere at Once album. Oh yeah, the band’s “Inch by Inch” was written by Andy, The Plimsouls’ Peter Case, and The Go-Go’s guitarist/keyboardist, Charlotte Caffey (by the way, Charlotte’s bandmate, bassist Kathy Valentine, plies her wonderful Substack trade on The Direction of Motion, infinitely readable and subscribe-able here by clicking on this sentence):

You’ll hear “Inch by Inch” below, on our featured Two Stories Williams Brothers album.

1986 found the lads in the studio with more Heartbreakers, including Petty’s guitarist, Mike Campbell and keyboardist, Benmont Tench, Allman Brothers’ Chuck Leavell on keys, and (Letterman and SNL) drummer, Steve Jordan.

Andy and David, again on background vocals, shine, on Brian Setzer’s “Chains Around Your Heart,” from his post-Stray Cats debut, The Knife Feels Like Justice:

Finally, the boys’ runway to their 1987 debut “adult” album: 1987’s Remembrance Days album by Dream Academy (yet another Warner Bros. entry, on affiliate Reprise Records).

Dream Academy had already made an impressive mark on the Madonna/Michael/hair metal mid-’80s landscape with their 1985 hits, “Life in a Northern Town” (#7 U.S., #15 UK, co-produced by Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour), and “The Love Parade” (#36 U.S., #68 UK, produced by Alan Tarney, who’s produced David Cassidy, Squeeze, A-ha, Cliff Richard, and many others).

Here, though, a zenith: The opening track to Remembrance Days, “Indian Summer,” with backing vocals (a veritable choir) by bandmembers Nick Laird-Clowes and Gilbert Gabriel, Fleetwood Mac guitarist, Lindsey Buckingham (who plays bass here and produces), longtime country rocker musician/songwriter, J.D. Souther, exec Michael Ostin, and Andy and David:

Two Stories

It was T-Bone Burnett who encouraged the boys to consider returning to “being up-front” as performers. Enter Warner Bros. Records honchos, CEO Tom Whalley and A&R exec, Michael Ostin (who joined in on vocals on “Indian Summer,” and is the son of longtime Warner Bros. chief, and 2003 Rock Hall inductee, the late Mo Ostin, who passed away July 31, 2022 at age 95).

It was at this point where they picked up Peter Asher as their manager. Asher, of course, spent several years in the ‘60s as half of singing duo, Peter and Gordon, before moving on to production and managing fellow artists like James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt, among others.

In fact, Taylor, Ronstadt, and Asher, plus Stevie Wonder, Carly Simon, and Carole King joined FR&B key contributor (and 1974 RCA Records singer/songwriter/guitarist), Stephen Michael Schwartz in enjoying the Rock’n’Roll Barbecue in 1975! Stephen takes us back to that star-studded event at Sunset Sound Studios, here, in his own words:

“Some Become Strangers” kicks off the boys’ initial post-teen record-biz entry, an album co-produced by the Heartbreakers’ Mike Campbell (tracks 2-7), Chuck Plotkin (tracks 4 and 8-10), and Patrick Leonard (Track 1). Two Stories was their first of three albums for Warner Bros.

Written by David, Amy LaTelevision, and Peter Rafelson, David begins, biographically enough, with this: “In the beginning I believed in another dream, it happened like a holiday; I could never really tell you what it meant to me, I can never make it matter with you anyway….thing is, time was….”

Here’s how Stevie Nicks made it sound just a couple years before, on her Rock a Little album in 1985:

If “Keeping Me Alive” (Track 4) sounds like a revved-up Everly Brothers powered by Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers, you wouldn’t be wrong. This is a studio outtake, produced by Jimmy Iovine, of Petty’s composition he had planned on including on his 1982 album, Long After Dark. Iovine nixed it. Petty had told Chicago’s TheDrive that he felt “the album would have been more successful if ‘Keeping Me Alive’ had been included.”

Iovine’s miss became The Williams Brothers’ hit…if not on radio, possibly the hit of the album. Fresh off the cutting-room floor, then:

Having played guitar on Petty’s jettisoned track, Mike Campbell does the honors on The Williams Brothers’ cover, five years later! Joining him are longtime Little Feat keyboardist, Bill Payne, and Letterman’s Late Night drummer of many years, Anton Fig (or as Dave used to call him, “Anton Zip”)!

The Trade? “You Like Me”

So, with Stevie having recorded “Some Become Strangers” in 1985, could she have consummated an intentional swap, of sorts? Track 6 on Two Stories is her unrecorded “You Like Me,” a rip-roaring Side 2 opener she has to have loved! Seriously, how does this stay off the radio, even (especially?) in 1987?

It’s a Mike Campbell co-write, and he provides bass and keyboards, with Petty’s Stan Lynch again on drums, propelling this from his first couple of emphatic tom thumps. Let’s hear what Andy (on guitar and harmonies), David (lead vocal and keys), and the assembled had to go on…Stevie’s demo:

The album concludes with a couple medium rockers, as well as a couple return trips to Everly hills with “Straight A’s in Love” and “All Pumped Up.”

The Williams, Others

Precious few teen idols, having been submerged in the suffocating world of formulaic pop ditties and the disposably shallow teeny-pop press, come out breathing, creatively. And, if they do, no one respects them or bothers to listen to any subsequent “grown-up” material they may put forth.

David Cassidy is the most obvious example, as his post-Partridge Family material (from 1975 on), for decades, was scoffed at, mercilessly, often without even being heard. I spent a couple of enlightening hours with David on the eve of that first “adult” album release in 1975, and I came away stunned by how his joy at “being free” was matched (if not exceeded) by his eager anticipation to, finally, express himself musically on his own terms.

While the public didn’t respond favorably, generally speaking, to David’s music post-teen-fandom, he, like The Williams twins, had the respect of his industry peers…easily:

In a Houston Penthouse With David Cassidy: Doing The "Shrimp Shuffle" in 1975