JOHNNY MATHIS

[Eman]

Whoa!!! Now that's blowing me away. Johnny made an album with Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of Chic? Man I bet that was a killer album. Hope it sees the light of day sometime.

[jon]

Johnny Mathis was 80 years old yesterday (30 September). Happy Birthday, Johnny!

[karl]

Can hardly believe he's 80 , hope he had a good Birthday .

[jon]

I have now received the new four-disc CD release Johnny Mathis: The Singles. Although many of the tracks are already on the market, there are around 30 or so that aren't and several are gems. The version of "If We Only Have Love" (while the same song) is differently arranged to that on the album "You've Got A Friend" (no piano, for example) and Johnny sings it slightly differently, though still well, of course. The sleeve notes say that next year Legacy will be releasing "The Complete Album Collection" to mark Johnny's 60 years with Columbia, so maybe those never-before-released albums from the 70s will be coming our way.

[karl]

Great news Jon.
My copy of The Singles is on the way.
Are you buying the new Christmas set with all the Xmas abums?

[jon]

Hi Karl

No, I won't be buying the Xmas box set. You'll find that many of the tracks on The Singles set are in fact Christmas ones so you may find some duplication with the Xmas set. I'm not a huge fan of Christmas songs and Johnny Mathis is probably the only singer I would tolerate singing them.

[Lena & Harry Smith]

Have just seen the news that Johnny Mathis has had a fire in his Hollywood Hills home.
Sadly he has lost an amount of his treasured momento's , but he is just glad that he is safe.

[karl]

That's a shame but at least he's not injured.
His new SIngles box set arrived at my door
yesterday.
Just read that Johnny's home is completely destroyed, he said it's the only home he's ever had, shame to start over again at that age.

[jon]

I heard about this from Andrew Castle on Smooth Radio last night when he played Johnny's version of I'm Stone in Love With You. Of course the main thing is that neither Johnny nor anyone else was harmed. Has there been any information about the reason for the fire?

He was no doubt insured and with his fortune will get another home, but of course this may not compensate for things of sentimental value that may have been lost.

[karl]

I read that Johnny intends to re-build, sounds like the fire started in his aquarium.
I do feel sorry for him though after living in that house for 57 years, it's the only home he's ever had.

[jon]

Two new albums from JM coming soon. On 29 September his new set singing The Great New American Songbook comes out featuring modern songs such as Adele's Hello and Pharell Williams's Happy.

On 8 December a 62-CD set of his Columbia albums appears featuring 25 albums which have not been released on CD before plus two previously unreleased albums and a set of 40 hitherto unreleased songs. God knows what this will cost though. I will have to rob a bank, I expect. It also presumably includes all those albums fans already have, so of course they'll be paying twice.

[ROBERT M.]

The Great New American Songbook .........so why Hello by Adele who couldn't be anything other than London/British

[karl]

The Great New American Songbook .........so why Hello by Adele who couldn't be anything other than London/British

Robert America has a tendency to claim everything as their own. Back in the 60's the American album "Dusty" has under her name "America's Newest Singing Star" - that is one of the LP's that has just been re-released.

[jon]

[quote="ROBERT M."]The Great New American Songbook .........so why Hello by Adele who couldn't be anything other than London/British [/quote]

As Karl says,
I guess this is because Adele is huge in America.

[karl]

The Great New American Songbook .........so why Hello by Adele who couldn't be anything other than London/British

As Karl says,
I guess this is because Adele is huge in America.

Is she Jon?, not that bothered about her.