EVERY time a well-known entertainer dies, tributes pour in from around the world.

Chris Wardell paid tribute to Andy Williams (Echo, Sept 28).

It is, of course, sad when anyone dies of cancer and Andy Williams’ death is regrettable in that context.

However, his music was simply awful, bland and completely disinteresting.

He followed in the tradition of Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Perry Como and Pat Boone – all wallpaper music crooners.

The 1950s revolution led by Elvis, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and others really exposed the mediocrity of what had gone before.

A long tradition of genuine originals followed from the Rolling Stones and Sex Pistols to today’s Beyonce, Rhianna, Will.i.am, Jay-Z and Lady Gaga.

And this development of popular music matters.

It is no accident that disc jockeys in the US southern states ceremonially smashed Elvis records shouting as they did so: “This is what we think of black man’s music.”

As primary children were confronted in Little Rock, Arkansas, by thugs with guns stopping black kids from entering integrated schools, so a parallel revolution was happening in popular culture.

In music it was rock and roll, in films it was In the Heat of The Night and to Kill a Mocking Bird, and in politics it was Martin Luther King.

Andy Williams and his like represented the cosy, white, keep our privileges intact ethos.

As for singing quality, try You- Tubing Williams singing Butterfly and compare with Charlie Gracie’s version or Pat Boone’s excruciating Tutti Frutti with Little Richard’s version.

Rob Meggs, Hartlepool.