Johnny Mathis
John Royce Mathis (born September 30, 1935) is an American singer of popular music. Starting his career with singles of standard music, he became highly popular as an album artist, with several dozen of his albums achieving gold or platinum status and 73 making the Billboard charts. He has received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for three recordings.
For other people with the same name, see Johnny Mathis (disambiguation).
Johnny Mathis
Mathis is the third-best-selling artist of the 20th century, selling 360 million records worldwide.[2][3] Although frequently described as a romantic singer, his discography includes traditional pop, Latin American, soul, rhythm and blues, show tunes, Tin Pan Alley, soft rock, blues, country music, and even a few disco songs for his album Mathis Magic in 1979. He has also recorded seven albums of Christmas music. In a 1968 interview, he cited Lena Horne, Nat King Cole, and Bing Crosby among his musical influences.[4]
Early life and education[edit]
Mathis was born in Gilmer, Texas, on September 30, 1935,[5] the fourth of seven children of Clem Mathis and Mildred Boyd, both domestic cooks.[6][7] He is African-American[8] and has stated that he has Native American ancestry on his mother's side.[9] The family moved to San Francisco when Mathis was five,[10] settling on 32nd Avenue in the Richmond District, where Mathis grew up.
Mathis' father worked in vaudeville as a singer and pianist, and on realizing his son's talent, bought an old upright piano for $25 (US$433 in 2023 dollars[11]) and encouraged his music. Mathis began learning songs and routines from his father; his parents also ran his fan club. Mathis' first song was "My Blue Heaven".[12] He started singing and dancing for visitors at home, at school, and at church functions.[13]
When Mathis was 13, voice teacher Connie Cox accepted him as her student in exchange for work around her house.[14] He studied with Cox for six years, learning vocal scales and exercises, voice production, classical and operatic singing. The first band he sang with was formed by his high school friend Merl Saunders. Mathis eulogized Saunders at his funeral in 2008, thanking him for giving Mathis his first chance as a singer.
Mathis was a star athlete at George Washington High School in San Francisco. He was a high jumper and hurdler, and he also played on the basketball team. In 1954, he enrolled at San Francisco State College on an athletic scholarship, competing in both basketball and track and intending to become a physical education teacher.[14][15] While there, he set a high-jump record of 1.97 m (6 ft 5+1⁄2 in), still one of the college's top jump heights and only 7 cm (3 in) short of the 1952 Olympic record of 2.04 m (6 ft 8+1⁄2 in). Mathis and future NBA star Bill Russell were featured in a 1954 sports section article of the San Francisco Chronicle demonstrating their high-jumping skills (Russell was No. 1 and Mathis was No. 2 in the city of San Francisco at that time).
Career[edit]
Early years[edit]
While singing at a Sunday afternoon jam session with a friend's jazz sextet at the Black Hawk Club in San Francisco, Mathis attracted the attention of the club's co-founder, Helen Noga. She became his music manager and found Mathis a job singing weekends at Ann Dee's 440 Club. In September 1955, she learned that George Avakian, head of Popular Music A&R at Columbia Records, was on vacation near San Francisco. After repeated calls, Noga finally persuaded Avakian to come hear Mathis at the 440 Club. After hearing Mathis sing, Avakian sent his record company a telegram stating: "Have found phenomenal 19-year-old boy who could go all the way. Send blank contracts."[13]
At San Francisco State, Mathis had become noteworthy as a high jumper, and in 1956, he was asked to try out for the U.S. Olympic Team that would travel to Melbourne that November.[5] On his father's advice, Mathis opted to embark on a professional singing career.
Mathis' first record album, Johnny Mathis: A New Sound In Popular Song, was a slow-selling jazz album, but Mathis stayed in New York City to sing in nightclubs. His second album was produced by Columbia Records vice-president and record producer Mitch Miller, who helped to define the Mathis sound. Miller preferred that Mathis sing soft, romantic ballads, pairing him with conductor and music arranger 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".[4] Also that year, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer signed him up to sing the latter song in the movie Lizzie (1957).
Showbiz millionaire[edit]
Mathis' appearance on the popular TV program The Ed Sullivan Show in June 1957 helped increase his popularity. Later that year, Mathis released "Chances Are", which became his second single to sell one million copies.[16] In November 1957, Mathis released "Wild Is the Wind", which featured in the film of the same name and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. He performed the song at the ceremony in March 1958.
Other appearances[edit]
Mathis has taped 12 of his own television specials and made over 300 television guest appearances, with 54 (Rojon Productions Archives) of them being on The Tonight Show. Longtime Tonight Show host Johnny Carson said, "Johnny Mathis is the best ballad singer in the world." Mathis appeared on the show with Carson's successor, Jay Leno,[23] on March 29, 2007, to sing "The Shadow of Your Smile" with the saxophonist Dave Koz. Through the years, Mathis' songs (or parts of them) have been heard in more than 100 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. In 1989, Mathis sang the theme for the ABC daytime soap opera Loving.
Mathis served as narrator for '51 Dons, a 2014 documentary film about the integrated and undefeated 1951 San Francisco Dons football team.[24] The team was denied a chance to play in a bowl game because it refused to agree to not play its two African-American players, Ollie Matson and Burl Toler, who were childhood friends of Mathis.[25]
Mathis appeared in the Season 14 finale of Criminal Minds, "Truth or Dare", in which he played himself as an old friend of David Rossi and served as best man at Rossi's wedding.
Matthis also played himself in the 2017 movie Just Getting Started.
Personal life[edit]
Despite missing the Olympic high-jump trials, Mathis retains enthusiasm for sports. He is an avid golfer, with nine holes in one to his credit. Mathis has hosted several Johnny Mathis Golf Tournaments in the United Kingdom and the US. Since 1985, he has been hosting a charity golf tournament in Belfast sponsored by Shell corporation,[26] and the annual Johnny Mathis Invitational Track & Field Meet has continued at San Francisco State University since it started in 1982. Mathis also enjoys cooking, and published a cookbook called Cooking for You Alone in 1982.[27]
Mathis has undergone rehabilitation for alcoholism and prescription drug addiction[14] and 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.
Mathis is a convert to Catholicism.[28][29]
Mathis was quoted[30] in a 1982 Us magazine article, stating: "Homosexuality is a way of life that I've grown accustomed to."[31] Mathis later said that that comment was supposed to have been off the record[32] and did not publicly discuss his sexual orientation for many years after that. In 2006, Mathis said that his silence had been because of death threats he received as a result of that 1982 article.[33][34] 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 reluctance to speak on the subject was partially generational.[35] During an interview with CBS News Sunday Morning on May 14, 2017, Mathis discussed the Us magazine article and confirmed that he is gay by saying, "I come from San Francisco. It's not unusual to be gay in San Francisco. I've had some girlfriends, some boyfriends, just like most [sic] people. But I never got married, for instance. I knew that I was gay." Mathis spoke to many news sources, including CBS, about his sexuality and his story about coming out.[36][32]
In November 2015, Mathis returned home from a concert in Ohio to find his Hollywood house destroyed by a fire. He had owned it for 56 years.[37] On January 17, 2023, a series of powerful storms drenched the hillside in front of the rebuilt Mathis home in Hollywood Hills, resulting in the collapse of the hillside, crushing a silver Jaguar with debris and mud. The hillside landslide cut off utilities to Mathis' hillside mansion, exposing water pipes and other infrastructure to the elements. The ground had given way in the 1400 block of Sunset Plaza Drive during the storm, taking out landscaping and terrain next to the home. It remained unclear at the time of news reports exactly when Mathis, aged 87 and still performing concerts, would be able to return and reoccupy his home, as the stability or instability of the home was not known in light of the surrounding terrain damage.[38]
While the character Shy Baldwin from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is a composite character based on several different singers, Rachel Brosnahan said that she most strongly associated Mathis with the character.[39]
Honors and awards[edit]
Grammys[edit]
In 2003, the Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences awarded Mathis the Lifetime Achievement Award. 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.[40]
Grammy Hall of Fame[edit]
Mathis has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for three separate recordings – in 1998 for "Chances Are", in 2002 for "Misty", and in 2008 for "It's Not for Me to Say".[41][42]
