Columbia's
16 Most Requested Songs series is a midline-priced series collecting an artist's best-known and most popular performances for the label. The results are hit or miss, since not all famous musicians recorded for Columbia their entire careers. Mahalia Jackson and Doris Day, for example, recorded a great deal for the label. So, too, did
Andy Williams. His
16 Most Requested Songs includes some of his best material from the 1950s, including "Butterfly," "Lonely Street," "Village of St. Bernadette," and "Charade." As
16 Most Requested Songs samplers go, this one is solid. It is not a perfect retrospective of his career, but it is a nice beginning collection. Casual fans might also want to consider I Like Your Kind of Love: The Best of the Cadence Years, which has many of the songs here but a few more. An overall solid retrospective. ~ JT Griffith