Johnny Mathis
-
Lena & Harry Smith
- Posts: 21514
- Joined: Tue Jul 12, 2005 10:05 am
- Location: London UK
-
Terence Lee
- Posts: 1095
- Joined: Sat Nov 19, 2005 8:29 pm
- Location: Penang Island, Malaysia
- Contact:
Mariana, have you read this article?
Johnny Mathis grew up in San Francisco, one of seven children born to a domestic worker and a chauffeur. Early in life, he revealed a voice as agile as a choirboy's. His father, a frustrated entertainer, bought him a piano and started playing him records by singers like Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee and Miss Horne.
At 13, he began studying opera with Connie Cox, a local coach, who brought a feminine influence to his singing. "She taught me to sing soft high notes, for example," he recalls. "Nat King Cole and Billy Eckstine had these big booming baritone voices, but my voice was quite different than that."
In school, Mr. Mathis set records for high-jumping and hurdling. By night he sang in local jazz joints to help support his family, but the clientele kept cutting him down to size. "People told me I sang too high and that I sounded like a girl," he says. "I thought it was a horrible thing God had given me, this strange voice." But most of the musicians he met -- among them Erroll Garner, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis -- cheered him on.
At 19, he met Helen Noga, a hard-boiled jazz club owner who became his manager. She prodded George Avakian, an executive at Columbia Records, to hear him, and in 1956 Mr. Avakian brought the singer to New York to record a jazz-flavored debut album. It was hardly noticed, but Mr. Mathis soon got a job at the Blue Angel, the city's premier cabaret and a haven for the offbeat.
"Carol Burnett sang a song about John Foster Dulles," he says, "and there was Enid Mosier and her Trinidad Steel Band -- all these bizarre people who probably couldn't get a job anywhere else. And I was this little black kid singing sophisticated songs. I didn't sing them too well, though. I was trying to jazz everything up."
HIS DIRECTION BECAME clear when he made friends with the man he calls "my Cole Porter": Bart Howard, the club's emcee and a revered composer of cafe ballads, notably "Fly Me to the Moon." "When Mathis came to the Blue Angel, his singing hadn't matured at all," Mr. Howard recalls. "His style was a little bit of Nat King Cole, a little bit of everything."
Mitch Miller, then a producer for Columbia, realized that Mr. Mathis's winsome voice had romantic potential. In the fall of 1956, he gave the singer a pair of cozy love songs, "Wonderful! Wonderful!" and "It's Not for Me to Say." Seemingly overnight, they made him a star. The next year his recording of "Chances Are" became No. 1, and other hits -- "The 12th of Never," "Misty," "A Certain Smile" -- quickly followed.
By age 25, Mr. Mathis was a millionaire, as well as a ubiquitous presence on television, in nightclubs and -- vocally -- alongside thousands of living room sofas on mom and dad's night out. But was he himself as lovestruck as the songs suggest? "Never!" he insists. "My interest in music was always rhythmical. But my voice wasn't suited to that."
The critics still found plenty to carp about. "All my teeth on one side were missing," says the singer, sticking a finger inside his cheek. "So in order to open my mouth to sing I had to twist it. That's what the critics wrote about. They wrote about the fact that I was uncomfortable in front of audiences. That's all I read for 20 years." He tried to compensate by mimicking Billy Eckstine, Sarah Vaughan and especially Miss Horne, whose clipped phrasing and ferocious mannerisms began to take over his act. "My appearances were godawful," he says. "I was up there doing Lena. I wanted to be her."
Nevertheless, by the mid-60's Mr. Mathis was singing exclusively in major venues and recording three albums a year, even though another No. 1 hit did not come until 1978: "Too Much, Too Little, Too Late," a duet with Deniece Williams. Thereafter, he made uneasy attempts at rock and disco; only in the late 80's did he turn his albums back over to pop standards. "It's like having this crazy aunt or uncle who comes out and embarrasses you once in a while," he says. "I'm like everybody else -- when disco was in, I wanted to sing disco. I shucked and jived for as long as I could, until finally I said: 'This is it. I'm 57 years old.' "
Campy around his chums but publicly shy, Mr. Mathis has always been evasive about personal matters. Queried about his love life by People magazine in 1978, he responded: "I'd rather sing about it. I'm as romantically inclined as anyone. But I've never had a relationship that's lasted longer than a few months." When Us magazine revealed his homosexuality in the early 80's (he says he was quoted off the record), it barely caused a ripple; apparently few people had doubted it or even cared. But since then he has barred all questions about his sexuality, breaking that barrier only inadvertently.
"I was always embarrassed by being called a romantic singer," he admits. "You spend all your time being a man, and then they put you in this romantic category. It bothered me when I was kid. But you go through it, and then you accept what people perceive you to be."
For more than 30 years Mr. Mathis has lived in a Hollywood Hills house with an Olympic-sized pool and 17 TV sets. But he's rarely there. "The road is my home," he says. "I carry my best friends with me. We work together, play together. I have no other life." Still, getting on stage remains a trial. "I hate it," he says. "But it's something I'll have to do all my life. I don't know how to do anything else." The payoff, he says, comes in small doses: "There are moments when the emotion comes out and I get absolutely carried away, and I know that this is right, this is wonderful."
And have the songs come true for him? He pauses for a long time. "I used to think, like everybody, that I was going to fall in love and have this wonderful life. But because my existence is so tunneled for the sake of my profession, I get my kicks from the fact that I can influence people through what I do. And it has a big influence, I've found out."
Mathis continued. "Life has a way of defining itself for you. I was meant to do what I do. I would be foolish -- and ungrateful -- to complain."
Johnny Mathis grew up in San Francisco, one of seven children born to a domestic worker and a chauffeur. Early in life, he revealed a voice as agile as a choirboy's. His father, a frustrated entertainer, bought him a piano and started playing him records by singers like Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee and Miss Horne.
At 13, he began studying opera with Connie Cox, a local coach, who brought a feminine influence to his singing. "She taught me to sing soft high notes, for example," he recalls. "Nat King Cole and Billy Eckstine had these big booming baritone voices, but my voice was quite different than that."
In school, Mr. Mathis set records for high-jumping and hurdling. By night he sang in local jazz joints to help support his family, but the clientele kept cutting him down to size. "People told me I sang too high and that I sounded like a girl," he says. "I thought it was a horrible thing God had given me, this strange voice." But most of the musicians he met -- among them Erroll Garner, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis -- cheered him on.
At 19, he met Helen Noga, a hard-boiled jazz club owner who became his manager. She prodded George Avakian, an executive at Columbia Records, to hear him, and in 1956 Mr. Avakian brought the singer to New York to record a jazz-flavored debut album. It was hardly noticed, but Mr. Mathis soon got a job at the Blue Angel, the city's premier cabaret and a haven for the offbeat.
"Carol Burnett sang a song about John Foster Dulles," he says, "and there was Enid Mosier and her Trinidad Steel Band -- all these bizarre people who probably couldn't get a job anywhere else. And I was this little black kid singing sophisticated songs. I didn't sing them too well, though. I was trying to jazz everything up."
HIS DIRECTION BECAME clear when he made friends with the man he calls "my Cole Porter": Bart Howard, the club's emcee and a revered composer of cafe ballads, notably "Fly Me to the Moon." "When Mathis came to the Blue Angel, his singing hadn't matured at all," Mr. Howard recalls. "His style was a little bit of Nat King Cole, a little bit of everything."
Mitch Miller, then a producer for Columbia, realized that Mr. Mathis's winsome voice had romantic potential. In the fall of 1956, he gave the singer a pair of cozy love songs, "Wonderful! Wonderful!" and "It's Not for Me to Say." Seemingly overnight, they made him a star. The next year his recording of "Chances Are" became No. 1, and other hits -- "The 12th of Never," "Misty," "A Certain Smile" -- quickly followed.
By age 25, Mr. Mathis was a millionaire, as well as a ubiquitous presence on television, in nightclubs and -- vocally -- alongside thousands of living room sofas on mom and dad's night out. But was he himself as lovestruck as the songs suggest? "Never!" he insists. "My interest in music was always rhythmical. But my voice wasn't suited to that."
The critics still found plenty to carp about. "All my teeth on one side were missing," says the singer, sticking a finger inside his cheek. "So in order to open my mouth to sing I had to twist it. That's what the critics wrote about. They wrote about the fact that I was uncomfortable in front of audiences. That's all I read for 20 years." He tried to compensate by mimicking Billy Eckstine, Sarah Vaughan and especially Miss Horne, whose clipped phrasing and ferocious mannerisms began to take over his act. "My appearances were godawful," he says. "I was up there doing Lena. I wanted to be her."
Nevertheless, by the mid-60's Mr. Mathis was singing exclusively in major venues and recording three albums a year, even though another No. 1 hit did not come until 1978: "Too Much, Too Little, Too Late," a duet with Deniece Williams. Thereafter, he made uneasy attempts at rock and disco; only in the late 80's did he turn his albums back over to pop standards. "It's like having this crazy aunt or uncle who comes out and embarrasses you once in a while," he says. "I'm like everybody else -- when disco was in, I wanted to sing disco. I shucked and jived for as long as I could, until finally I said: 'This is it. I'm 57 years old.' "
Campy around his chums but publicly shy, Mr. Mathis has always been evasive about personal matters. Queried about his love life by People magazine in 1978, he responded: "I'd rather sing about it. I'm as romantically inclined as anyone. But I've never had a relationship that's lasted longer than a few months." When Us magazine revealed his homosexuality in the early 80's (he says he was quoted off the record), it barely caused a ripple; apparently few people had doubted it or even cared. But since then he has barred all questions about his sexuality, breaking that barrier only inadvertently.
"I was always embarrassed by being called a romantic singer," he admits. "You spend all your time being a man, and then they put you in this romantic category. It bothered me when I was kid. But you go through it, and then you accept what people perceive you to be."
For more than 30 years Mr. Mathis has lived in a Hollywood Hills house with an Olympic-sized pool and 17 TV sets. But he's rarely there. "The road is my home," he says. "I carry my best friends with me. We work together, play together. I have no other life." Still, getting on stage remains a trial. "I hate it," he says. "But it's something I'll have to do all my life. I don't know how to do anything else." The payoff, he says, comes in small doses: "There are moments when the emotion comes out and I get absolutely carried away, and I know that this is right, this is wonderful."
And have the songs come true for him? He pauses for a long time. "I used to think, like everybody, that I was going to fall in love and have this wonderful life. But because my existence is so tunneled for the sake of my profession, I get my kicks from the fact that I can influence people through what I do. And it has a big influence, I've found out."
Mathis continued. "Life has a way of defining itself for you. I was meant to do what I do. I would be foolish -- and ungrateful -- to complain."
-
Terence Lee
- Posts: 1095
- Joined: Sat Nov 19, 2005 8:29 pm
- Location: Penang Island, Malaysia
- Contact:
Johnny Mathis Prepares to Sing Fans' Favourites at Caesars Show
Johnny Mathis calls them his Holy Trinity.
Three songs that have defined his career from the beginning. Three songs every audience wants to hear. Three songs he could never drop from his repertoire.
Chances Are. The Twelfth of Never. Misty.
All dating from 1957-59 and all Mathis essentials.
"I do them first thing," he said. "That first 25 minutes of every show. Once I sing those songs, I can relax and do whatever else I want to because the audience is content."
While he tours with a comedian (Brad Upton), Mathis hits the stage first to sing his big three and a couple of other favourites. Then he retreats backstage while Upton goes to work. About 45 minutes later, after a brief intermission, Mathis returns for another hour or so of his hits.
It's an approach that has worked both for him and for his audiences over the years.
Mathis at 73 is way past the age of teasing his fans by saving the best until last. It's a mark of his respect for those who have helped put him in the Grammy Awards Hall of Fame and maintained his popularity over a six-decade career.
Mathis can't remember when he didn't sing to make people happy, in fact.
"When I was 13, I'd go to my voice teacher (Connie Cox) and I'd sing to her in a voice just like Billy Eckstine one day and Peggy Lee the next. My voice was changing, so I could do fairly good impressions of both of them."
Growing up, Mathis would sing the hits of the day by Nat King Cole, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and more, while his father, an accomplished pianist and former vaudevillian, accompanied him. Later, it was his father who encouraged him to pursue music when the life of an athlete also beckoned.
Mathis was a champion high jumper and hurdler in his teens and early 20s in San Francisco, and could have chosen a career in athletics. To this day, he exercises five days a week and is a low-handicap golfer.
His parents couldn't afford expensive voice lessons -- they both worked as domestics and raised a large family of seven children. So Mathis earned his own way, paying for lessons by cleaning up around the teacher's house. He got into San Francisco State University on an athletic scholarship, but he supplemented his income by singing at San Francisco nightclubs.
Spotted by jazz producer George Avakian, he was soon signed to a contract by Columbia Records in 1955. It wasn't long before Mathis recorded the song that launched his career -- It's Not for Me to Say (1957) -- which featured Ray Conniff and his orchestra and production by Columbia's influential A&R chief Mitch Miller.
"I was really fortunate early in my career to get someone like Ray Conniff playing with me," said Mathis. "Ray had some pretty interesting ideas about how to make records sound different. I remember once he had the singers singing through a comb and tissue paper."
The first few recordings, he said, mirrored what he had learned from his mentors, like Cole and Lee.
"But gradually they started to sound like me. Having a voice that people can instantly recognize has been a real benefit in my career."
Johnny Carson once described Mathis as the best ballad singer of his generation. His heavily romantic songs and whispery vocals have proved to be mood-setters for nearly half-a-century of lovemaking.
"I've been told that many times," said Mathis with a laugh. "I sometimes wish I'd been told that when I was younger and just starting out. It would have been a great boost for my confidence."
Along with those inevitable hits, you might hear a Christmas song or two.
"If there's snow on the ground," he vowed, "I'll definitely sing Winter Wonderland. I love that song."
Mathis has recorded about a dozen Christmas albums, beginning very early in his recording career with Merry Christmas, which featured Sleigh Ride and Winter Wonderland in lush Percy Faith arrangements.
The album was released in 1958 and is still a staple in Columbia's seasonal catalogue.
"After I had a couple of hits and could start making my own choices of material," Mathis said, "I did records that I knew my mom and dad would appreciate. I made a Christmas album because my mother loved Christmas songs. Lo and behold, after all these years it's still selling at Christmas."
His touring band, he said, is like his second family. Guitarist Gil Reigers has been performing with him for 37 years, while others have been in the band for at least two decades.
The performing unit is augmented by 10 string players and a dozen brass and woodwind musicians drawn from the local community. Like the recent Regis Philbin show, that means work for Windsor and area musicians.
Johnny Mathis calls them his Holy Trinity.
Three songs that have defined his career from the beginning. Three songs every audience wants to hear. Three songs he could never drop from his repertoire.
Chances Are. The Twelfth of Never. Misty.
All dating from 1957-59 and all Mathis essentials.
"I do them first thing," he said. "That first 25 minutes of every show. Once I sing those songs, I can relax and do whatever else I want to because the audience is content."
While he tours with a comedian (Brad Upton), Mathis hits the stage first to sing his big three and a couple of other favourites. Then he retreats backstage while Upton goes to work. About 45 minutes later, after a brief intermission, Mathis returns for another hour or so of his hits.
It's an approach that has worked both for him and for his audiences over the years.
Mathis at 73 is way past the age of teasing his fans by saving the best until last. It's a mark of his respect for those who have helped put him in the Grammy Awards Hall of Fame and maintained his popularity over a six-decade career.
Mathis can't remember when he didn't sing to make people happy, in fact.
"When I was 13, I'd go to my voice teacher (Connie Cox) and I'd sing to her in a voice just like Billy Eckstine one day and Peggy Lee the next. My voice was changing, so I could do fairly good impressions of both of them."
Growing up, Mathis would sing the hits of the day by Nat King Cole, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and more, while his father, an accomplished pianist and former vaudevillian, accompanied him. Later, it was his father who encouraged him to pursue music when the life of an athlete also beckoned.
Mathis was a champion high jumper and hurdler in his teens and early 20s in San Francisco, and could have chosen a career in athletics. To this day, he exercises five days a week and is a low-handicap golfer.
His parents couldn't afford expensive voice lessons -- they both worked as domestics and raised a large family of seven children. So Mathis earned his own way, paying for lessons by cleaning up around the teacher's house. He got into San Francisco State University on an athletic scholarship, but he supplemented his income by singing at San Francisco nightclubs.
Spotted by jazz producer George Avakian, he was soon signed to a contract by Columbia Records in 1955. It wasn't long before Mathis recorded the song that launched his career -- It's Not for Me to Say (1957) -- which featured Ray Conniff and his orchestra and production by Columbia's influential A&R chief Mitch Miller.
"I was really fortunate early in my career to get someone like Ray Conniff playing with me," said Mathis. "Ray had some pretty interesting ideas about how to make records sound different. I remember once he had the singers singing through a comb and tissue paper."
The first few recordings, he said, mirrored what he had learned from his mentors, like Cole and Lee.
"But gradually they started to sound like me. Having a voice that people can instantly recognize has been a real benefit in my career."
Johnny Carson once described Mathis as the best ballad singer of his generation. His heavily romantic songs and whispery vocals have proved to be mood-setters for nearly half-a-century of lovemaking.
"I've been told that many times," said Mathis with a laugh. "I sometimes wish I'd been told that when I was younger and just starting out. It would have been a great boost for my confidence."
Along with those inevitable hits, you might hear a Christmas song or two.
"If there's snow on the ground," he vowed, "I'll definitely sing Winter Wonderland. I love that song."
Mathis has recorded about a dozen Christmas albums, beginning very early in his recording career with Merry Christmas, which featured Sleigh Ride and Winter Wonderland in lush Percy Faith arrangements.
The album was released in 1958 and is still a staple in Columbia's seasonal catalogue.
"After I had a couple of hits and could start making my own choices of material," Mathis said, "I did records that I knew my mom and dad would appreciate. I made a Christmas album because my mother loved Christmas songs. Lo and behold, after all these years it's still selling at Christmas."
His touring band, he said, is like his second family. Guitarist Gil Reigers has been performing with him for 37 years, while others have been in the band for at least two decades.
The performing unit is augmented by 10 string players and a dozen brass and woodwind musicians drawn from the local community. Like the recent Regis Philbin show, that means work for Windsor and area musicians.
