Johnny Mathis

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Johnny Mathis
Johnny Mathis in concert at the Chumash Casino Resort in Santa Ynez, California, on May 25, 2006.
Background information
Birth name	John Royce Mathis
Born	September 30, 1935 (1935-09-30) (age 74)
Origin	Gilmer, Texas, United States
Genres	Pop, jazz, Latin
Occupations	Singer, songwriter, actor
Years active	1956–present
Labels	Columbia, Mercury
Website	www.JohnnyMathis.com

Johnny Mathis (born John Royce Mathis, September 30, 1935) is an American singer of popular music.

One of the last in a long line of traditional male vocalists who emerged before the 1960s, Mathis concentrated on romantic jazz and pop standards for the adult contemporary audience through to the 1980s. Starting his career with a flurry of singles of standards, Mathis became more popular as an album artist, with several dozen of his albums achieving gold or platinum status, and over 60 making the Billboard charts.^[1] According to the Recording Industry Association of America, Mathis has sales of over 17 million certified units in the United States.^[2] According to British recordings chart historian and music writer Paul Gambaccini, Mathis has recorded over 130 albums and sold more than 180 million records worldwide.^[3]

Early life

Mathis was born on October 31, 1935 in Gilmer, Texas, the fourth of seven children to Clem Mathis and his wife, Mildred Boyd, and is of both African-American and Caucasian ancestry.[1] The family moved when he was young to San Francisco, California on Post Street, in the famous Fillmore district where he was raised. His father worked for a time in vaudeville, and when he saw the budding talent in his son, the elder Mathis bought an old upright piano for US$25 to encourage his efforts. From his father, Mathis began learning songs and routines–his first song being, "My Blue Heaven."^[4] Mathis started out singing and dancing for visitors at home, and later publicly, at school and church events.^[5]

At thirteen, Mathis was taken to Connie Cox, a San Francisco Bay Area voice teacher, who accepted him as a student in exchange for work he would do around her house.^[6] He studied with Cox for six years, learning vocal scales and exercises, voice production, classical and operatic skills. He remains one of the few popular singers who has received years of professional voice training that included opera.

At George Washington High School, Mathis was well known not only for his singing abilities, but also as a star athlete. On the track and field team, he was a high jumper and hurdler, and on the basketball team, he earned four athletic letters. In 1954, Mathis enrolled at San Francisco State University on a scholarship with the intention of becoming an English and physical education teacher.^[6]

Music career

He was spotted at a jam session by Helen Noga, former head cocktail waitress and co-owner of The Black Hawk Club at 200 Hyde Street in San Francisco and The DownBeat Club along with her husband John, and Guido Caccienti. She became his manager. The clubs attracted the world's finest jazz musicians, including Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, and Billie Holiday. John Noga and Guido Caccienti had opened the Black Hawk in the fall of 1949 for $10,000. In September 1955, after Noga landed Mathis a job singing weekends at Ann Dee's 440 Club, she ruthlessly pursued jazz producer George Avakian, who she found out was on vacation in the Bay Area. Avakian came to see him sing, and sent the now famous telegram to Columbia Records: Have found phenomenal 19-year old boy who could go all the way. Send blank contracts.^[5]

Mathis now had to decide whether to go to the Olympic tryouts, to which he had been invited, or to keep an appointment in New York to make his first recordings, which were subsequently released in 1956. With his father's advice, Mathis opted for a recording career and the rest is history. He has never completely abandoned his enthusiasm for sports and today is an avid golfer who has achieved six holes-in-one, and has hosted several Johnny Mathis Golf Tournaments in the USA and the United Kingdom. Since 1985 he has been hosting a charity golf tournament in Belfast sponsored by Shell corporation, and the annual Johnny Mathis Invitational Track & Field Meet has continued at San Francisco State College since it started in 1982.

His first album Johnny Mathis: A New Sound In Popular Song was a slow-selling jazz album, but Mathis stayed in New York to play the clubs. His second album was produced by Columbia records vice-president and producer Mitch Miller, who defined the Mathis sound - he preferred him to sing soft, romantic ballads, initially pairing him with arranger/conductor Ray Conniff, and later, Ray Ellis, Glenn Osser and Robert Mersey. In late 1956, Mathis recorded two of his most popular songs - "Wonderful! Wonderful!" and "It's Not For Me To Say." That year MGM signed Mathis to sing the latter song in the 1957 film Lizzie, and shortly afterward he made his second film appearance for 20th Century Fox singing the song A Certain Smile in the film of the same name. He had small acting roles in both movies as a bar singer. This early cinematic visibility in two successful movies gave him mass exposure. Next was his appearance on the very popular Ed Sullivan Show in 1957 and this helped to seal his stardom. Critics called him the velvet voice.^[4]

In summer of 1958, Mathis left San Francisco with the Nogas, who sold their interest in the Black Hawk club that year to Max Weiss, secretary-treasurer of San Francisco's avant-garde Fantasy Records, and moved to Beverly Hills where the Nogas purchased a home in which Mathis lived with them, their daughter Beverly, and their granddaughter, at 806 North Elm Drive at the corner of Elm and Sunset Boulevard, built in 1931 by the Max Factor family and later owned by Mabel C. Birdwell and Lillian and Ben Young, for about $99,500, which the Nogas later sold to singer Dionne Warwick in the summer of 1973 for around $359,500. Helen Noga, looking to expand her operations into production, financing, and publishing, also founded and funded Philles Records in 1961 with Phil Spector, with Lester Sills handling the business side of sales and promotion, which launched the Crystals in September 1961. Using money from Liberty Records, Noga was bought out by Spector in 1962 for around $60,000. Mathis had two of his biggest hits in the years 1962 and 1963, with "Gina" (#6) and "What Will Mary Say" (#9). In October 1964, Mathis sued Noga to void the management arrangement, which Noga fought with a counterclaim in December 1964. Mathis purchased a mansion in the Hollywood Hills, that was originally built by billionaire Howard Hughes in 1946, and later owned by hotel owner Hyatt R. Von Dehn and Oilman Robert Calhoun, and where he still maintains a residence.

After splitting from Noga, Mathis established Jon Mat Records, Inc., incorporated in California May 11, 1967 to produce his recordings, and Rojon Productions, Inc., incorporated in California September 30, 1964 to handle all of his concert, theater, showroom and television appearances, and all promotional and charitable activities. His new manager and business partner was Ray Haughn, who helped guide his career until his death in September 1984. Since that time, Mathis has taken sole responsibility for his career, operating from office suites at 1612 W Olive Avenue in Burbank. With the exception of a four-year break with Mercury Records in the mid-1960s, he has been with Columbia Records throughout his recording career.

Pieces of music from numerous Mathis albums continue to be used throughout motion pictures and television with great effect to impart nostalgia or mood themes, for example Chances Are memorably used during an alien visit in the 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and various numbers currently in the hit TV series Mad Men.

Although he is frequently described as a romantic singer, his vast discography includes jazz, traditional pop, Brazilian and Spanish music, Soul, R&B, soft rock, Broadway, Tin Pan Alley standards, some blues and country songs, and even a few disco tunes for his album Mathis Magic (1979). In 1980/81 Mathis recorded an album with Chic's Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers, I Love My Lady, which remains unreleased. Mathis also remains highly associated with holiday music, having recorded nine Christmas albums. Mathis has the distinction of having the longest stay of any recording artist on the Columbia Record label, having been with the label from 1956 to 1963 and from 1968 to the present.

In 1958, Johnny’s Greatest Hits was released and was the first ever Greatest Hits album in the music industry. It began the Greatest Hits tradition copied by every record company. Johnny's Greatest Hits spent an unprecedented 490 consecutive weeks (nine and a half years) on the Billboard album chart, a feat earning him a place in the Guinness Book of World Records and not broken until the 1980s by Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon. He has had five of his albums on the Billboard charts simultaneously, an achievement equaled by only two other singers, Frank Sinatra and Barry Manilow. He released 200 singles and had 71 songs charted around the world.

He has received three Grammy awards. In 1979, his hit duet "The Last Time I Felt Like This" from the film Same Time, Next Year was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song. Mathis and Jane Olivor sang the song at the Oscar ceremony. This was his second performance at the Academy Awards. He has taped twelve of his own television specials and made over 300 television guest appearances with 33 of them being on The Tonight Show. Through the years his songs (or parts of them) have been heard in 100 plus television shows and films around the globe. His appearance on the Live by Request broadcast in May 1998 on the A&E Network had the largest television viewing audience of the series. Also in 1989, Johnny sang the opening theme for the ABC daytime soap opera Loving.

Mathis continues to perform but from 2000 onwards has limited his concert engagements to fifty to sixty appearances per year. In 2006, his schedule included a UK tour that included his annual Scottish golf vacation and attendance at the 2006 Ryder Cup, two stints at his favourite Hilton Hotel in Las Vegas. He still records and his 2005 album Isn't It Romantic: The Standards Album has been enthusiastically received by critics and music buyers. Tonight Show host Johnny Carson, who heard over 2000 singers on his show, said: "Johnny Mathis is the best ballad singer in the world." He appeared on the NBC Tonight Show with Jay Leno^[7] as a guest on March 29, 2007 performing the classic "The Shadow of Your Smile" with saxophonist Dave Koz. Mathis returned to the UK Top 20 album chart in 2007 with the Sony BMG release "The Very Best of Johnny Mathis" and again in 2008 with the Columbia CD "A Night to Remember".

Personal life

In a 1982 Us Magazine article, Mathis was quoted as having said, "Homosexuality is a way of life that I've grown accustomed to." Us Magazine later retracted the statement. ^[8] After more than twenty years of silence on the subject, Mathis revealed in an interview in 2006 that his silence was due to death threats he received as a result of that 1982 article.^[9][10] On April 13, 2006, Mathis granted a podcast interview with The Strip in which he talked about the subject once again, and how some of his reticence to speak of the subject was partially generational.^[11]

In 1982 he published a cookbook, Cooking for You Alone.

Mathis had surgery for prostate cancer in 2005.^{[citation needed]} He has also undergone rehab for both alcohol and prescription drug addictions.^[6]

He has supported many organizations through the years, including the American Cancer Society, the March of Dimes, the YWCA and YMCA, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, and the NAACP.

Grammy history

Mathis received the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003, by the Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. This Special Merit Award is presented by vote of the Recording Academy's National Trustees to performers who, during their lifetimes, have made creative contributions of outstanding artist significance to the field of recording.^[12]

Grammy Hall of Fame

Johnny Mathis was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, which is a special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least twenty-five years old, and that have "qualitative or historical significance."^[13][14]

Discography

Selected hit singles

The following songs reached either the top 50 on the US Billboard Hot 100 or the top 10 on the easy listening (changed to adult contemporary in 1979) singles chart. Billboard began publishing easy listening singles charts in 1961.

Each of the above were issued on the Columbia Records label with the exception of the duet with Dionne Warwick, "Friends In Love," which was released on Warwick's label, Arista Records.

Other noteworthy hit songs

Albums

Mathis has had much more success as an album artist. His celebrated albums include:

Bibliography

• Mathis, Johnny; Brash, Peter; Birch, Marge (1982). Cooking for You Alone. Pasadena, CA: Tech. Educ. Co.. ISBN 0939402009. 

References

External links

• Johnny Mathis at the Internet Broadway Database
• Johnny Mathis at the Internet Movie Database

• Johnny Mathis Official website
• Johnny Mathis at Sony website
• Mathis, Johnny-AMG discography — Allmusic
• Johnny Mathis at The Mathis Chronicles
• Johnny Mathis NPR Audio: with Ed Gordon
• Dave Koz f/ Johnny Mathis "The Shadow of Your Smile" NBC Audio: The Tonight Show
• Thom Bell talks about his classic Johnny Mathis produced album "I'm Coming Home" Soul Jones Presents