JOHNNY MATHIS

[mariana44]

A little of both really Jon. No, I am not saying it is not good--but it is different. Some of the tracks are lovely.

"In a sentimental mood" [the Ellington tribute] was more suited to his voice.

I think he was also nominated for a grammy for "The Hollywood" musicals with Henry Mancini, which still remains one of my favourite of all the JM recordings--a lovely , lovely CD.

[jon]

Thanks for this, Marian. Maybe you are saying he is not particularly suited to country music? I agree that the Henry Mancini album was one of his best.

[Terence Lee]

Click on the link below for a recent AFTERGLOW show that Johnny did. He talks about his new CD, some of his classic recordings, how he came to sing MISTY and the afternoon he spent with Cole Porter. It's a one-hour program.
http://indianapublicmedia.org/afterglow/johnny-mathis/

[mariana44]

Thanks for that link Terence, I will watch it as soon as I get time.

Pretty busy just now.

[Terence Lee]

Old Pro Johnny Mathis Welcomes Christmas at Mohegan

by Thomas Kintner
Hartford Courant, December 21, 2010

More than 50 years after his first recordings, Johnny Mathis remains a ballad's
best friend. The singing icon wrapped the holidays in elegant vocal packaging
Sunday night at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville.

With a full 30-plus piece orchestra for support, Mathis glided across his opener
with a welcoming lilt in his delivery of "Winter Wonderland." He interspersed
tunes from his extensive catalog with holiday fare, wasting little time in
getting to the simply rendered passions of "It's Not for Me to Say" with
trickling piano accompaniment from bandleader Scott Lavender, and a silky turn
on the deliberate "Chances Are."

A prerecorded chorus augmented Mathis' graceful phrasings in several songs,
including a mild "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas," and added heft
to the sway of "Caroling, Caroling," but Mathis was always its focal point. His
voice cascaded across "The Christmas Song," and he poured his tone over
"Toyland" with tremolo, a lush orchestral string bed backing him up.

Mathis was the epitome of easy listening, a friend to lyrics as he measured each
word of the "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" tune "Pure Imagination,"
making each line as dapper as the suit he donned for the show's second set
following an initial run in more casual wear. He caressed lines without
overplaying sentiment, invested in the gravity of "Secret Love" and gentle in
his reverie as he navigated the supple "Misty."

Mathis nestled comfortably into every circumstance, a velvety adornment
alongside the brass punch of "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year," and
deliberate in rendering "Christmas Time is Here" as an understated reminiscence.
An a cappella interlude within "It's Christmas Time Again" showed the charm his
voice retains as the song welled with romantic atmosphere.

With traces of flamenco guitar dappling its edges, Mathis sailed through "99
Miles From L.A." and etched the words of "The Twelfth of Never" with compelling
earnestness. The jazz qualities of his singing rose to the surface as he reached
the end of his program, first alongside a breezy samba and then in a closing
offering of "Brazil" sparked with an extra touch of verve. He returned quickly
for an encore of "Merry Christmas," spinning tidings of the 1949 tune from "In
the Good Old Summertime" with care, craft and the tenderness in which he so
readily specializes.
______________________________________

Johnny Mathis Fills Mohegan Sun with Christmas Cheer

by Keith J. O'Connor
Springfield (Massachusetts) Republican, December 21, 2010

With so many concerts today heavy on the glitz and glamor, you sometimes forget
there are still performers out there who can just come out and sing. And that's
enough for the audience.

The legendary Johnny Mathis is one of those singers and proved he needed nothing
more than his voice to please his audience at Mohegan Sun Arena on Sunday night
where he brought his annual holiday show.

The Connecticut casino was lucky enough to nab the 75-year-old singer who only
performs a handful of holiday shows each year. And it's interesting to note that
while Mathis' career has been synonymous with Christmas music, he only began
adding holiday shows to his tour dates about 10 years ago at the encouragement
of Andy Williams.

A "Johnny Mathis" concert as much as a holiday show, the beloved singer
celebrated the season with an evening of his classic hits mixed with Christmas
favorites from his many holiday albums -- the first of which entitled "Merry
Christmas" was released in 1958 and recorded when he was just 23 years old.

Mathis performed for about 75 glorious minutes in a show that also included
comedian Gary Mule Deer, who the singer introduced as "a new friend I met on the
golf course."

Christmas music was already filling the arena as the audience took their seats
waiting for the artist to appear on stage, which was simply decorated with two
Christmas trees, some poinsettia plants and a beautiful backdrop depicting a
snowy village.

The concert began a few minutes late with an opening overture led by orchestra
conductor John Scott Lavender that must have lasted at least five minutes
featuring Christmas songs linked cleverly by strains of the singer's many hits.
Looking younger than his years, the singer walked on stage dressed casually in
slacks, shirt and a pair of sneakers, eschewing his traditional tuxedo for the
special evening.

Stepping up to the microphone he immediately broke into "Winter Wonderland" and
after greeted the audience by telling them he would be performing "holiday
favorites, songs you will be most familiar with, and a few that will leave you
wondering 'Where did he find that one?'"

Following "Winter Wonderland," the artist launched into several of his early
hits including "It's Not for Me to Say," "Gina" and "Chances Are," which brought
some to their feet clapping and yelling as he hit the high notes of the song.

Other crowd favorites throughout the evening included "You Make Me Feel Brand
New," a hit for The Stylistics, "Misty," "Twelfth of Never," and "Crazy" from
his latest album recorded in Nashville.

I hate to be a Scrooge. But there is one way Mathis could have improved on
Sunday's show -- which in a word was fantastic. When it came to the many
Christmas choruses in his holiday set list -- "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like
Christmas," "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year," "Toyland," "The
Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)," "We Need a Little
Christmas" and tons more -- they were tracked instead of having several back-up
singers appear live on stage with him.

[mariana44]

I have a friend who has just seen some JM Christmas concerts in Branson--she said they were just magic !!

[Terence Lee]

Johnny Mathis interviewed

Melding Spiritual Traditions

Johnny Mathis to discuss his links to Jewish music

by Jesse Hamlin
San Francisco Chronicle, February 3, 2011

Johnny Mathis was no stranger to Jewish music when he recorded "Kol Nidre," the
soul-stirring Aramaic prayer sung at the start of Yom Kippur, the Day of
Atonement. Growing up in San Francisco, the silken-voice singer was captivated
by the cantorial music he heard in the synagogues of his Jewish friends.

"It was the extreme emotion the cantors sang with," says Mathis, whose soaring
version of "Kol Nidre" appeared on his 1958 album "Good Night, Dear Lord," a
religious-themed record that included Yiddish and Hebrew songs, African American
spirituals and "Ave Maria." The album was a major departure for Mathis, who'd
shot to stardom with a string of hit romantic records like "Chances Are" and
"It's Not for Me to Say."

His "Kol Nidre" was all but forgotten until the self-described "Dumpster-diving
record collectors" of New York's Idelsohn Society for Musical Preservation came
across a rare 7-inch recording of it. Blown away by the power of the
performance, and intrigued by the idea of African American artists embracing
Jewish music, they began compiling recordings by Cab Calloway, Aretha Franklin,
Lena Horne, Nina Simone, the Temptations and other black musicians who were
drawn to Jewish melodies and culture. That connection is celebrated in the
exhibition "Black Sabbath: The Secret Musical History of Black-Jewish Relations"
at San Francisco's Contemporary Jewish Museum.

"People have often said that black people and Jewish people sounded an awful lot
alike musically, and I think it's true," says Mathis, who will be at the museum
tonight, talking about his music and accepting accolades and proclamations. "The
music has those guttural, mournful sounds. All the jazz guys I grew up with
picked up on that."

Bond between peoples

The show, which explores the bond between peoples with a shared history of
oppression, has listening stations where you can hear everything from Ethel
Waters' version of "Eli, Eli," the Hebrew song based King David's lament in the
22nd Psalm, to Horne's passionate "Now!" a civil rights protest song based on
"Hava Nagila," to the Yiddish-spiked jazz jive of Calloway and Slim Gaillard.
The "Go Down Moses" playlist focuses on soul music and spirituals inspired by
the Old Testament.

Mathis, who lived with his parents and six siblings at Post and Baker streets in
the Western Addition, grew up singing spirituals in the choir at the African
Methodist Episcopal church. A musical prodigy who was also a record-setting high
jumper at Washington High and San Francisco State University, he hung out at the
jazz clubs that flourished in the Fillmore district. His longtime vocal teacher,
Connie Cox, turned him on to the great opera singers Robert Merrill and Richard
Tucker, both former cantors.

"I was always gung-ho to sing something more challenging than the light pop
stuff I was doing," says Mathis, 75, on the phone from his Hollywood Hills home.

A Grammy Hall of Famer who has sold more than 300 million records over the
course of his celebrated 55-year career, Mathis had been singing sweet romantic
songs under the tutelage of producer Mitch Miller when he felt the urge to
stretch out and dig deeper. He'd sold so many records for Columbia -- his
eternally popular 1958 Greatest Hits album was the first compilation of its kind
-- the company allowed him to make an album of religious music. Columbia didn't
promote it, but Mathis takes great pride in the record, which he made with the
famed arranger and conductor Percy Faith.

'Feeling of reverence'

"It was amazing how Percy got the feeling of reverence from every song," says
Mathis, who passed up a chance to compete in the 1956 Olympic trials at UC
Berkeley when Columbia summoned him to New York to make his first record. "The
Negro spirituals sound very much like the Hebrew stuff. It all seemed very
natural to me."

Faith, who was Jewish, suggested Mathis sing "Kol Nidre." Mathis says he may
have heard the prayer sung in a San Francisco synagogue -- the name of the
temple he attended with his Washington High basketball buddies Stan and Jerry
Rosenberg eludes him -- but he remembers hearing it on records.

"Strangely enough, I heard Perry Como do it," Mathis says. Unlike other longer
versions in which lines were repeated, Como's take was 3 minutes long. "I took
Perry's structure and added the emotion of Mahalia Jackson. I used to listen to
her record. Her emotion, her feeling, was everything. I did 'Kol Nidre' at
absolutely the right time for me vocally. It sounds authentic to me.

"It's a series of moments -- it's pleading, it's declaring, it's cajoling. I was
hoping that I got it right. I was happy with it, because I did it honestly."
Mathis, who still sings 40 dates a year, was thrilled when the Idelsohn Society
contacted him about reissuing "Kol Nidre" on its "Black Sabbath" compilation and
building a show around it.

"I couldn't believe somebody was interested in that aspect of my music. To have
this 'Kol Nidre' elevated out of obscurity is wonderful."

Foray into country

Mathis, whose classic 1960 recording of Errol Garner's "Misty" remains the
definitive version, recorded his first country album last year, "Let It Be Me:
Mathis in Nashville," which is up for a Grammy. Vince Gill and Alison Krauss
contributed vocals.

"My dad, the first guy who taught me to sing, was from Texas," Mathis says, "so
the songs I heard as kid were country in nature. I was a little bit hesitant,
because Ray Charles -- who I had a chance to record with before he died and sing
at his funeral -- had made that iconic country music recording. Then I went to
Nashville and listened. Ray had done it his way. I just sang the music according
to the way these great guitar players played the stuff in the studio. It was one
of the greatest experiences of my life."

[mariana44]

"Good Night Dear Lord" was a very dfifferent type of recording, and at one time very difficult to get hold of the LP--but it is now available in CD.

[Terence Lee]

Mariana, I just saw Johnny Mathis sing a Christmas duet with Josh Groban on the Oprah show. He still sounds so good, much better than on the country CD which Oprah gave to everyone in the audience. He looks fairer than I remember and his face is remarkably line-free. he also has a full head of hair. Not bad for a guy in his 70s.

[mariana44]

Hi Terence-I have seen that duet with Josh Groban--why are they not releasing material like that these days !!

[mariana44]

I have just had news from US that Johnny Mathis is doing 3 concerts in Uk in October--one in the London O2 arena, one in Birmingham, and one at Manchester MENA---all massive venues.

I have not missed a UK JM concert for 30 years---but I do not think I will get to any of them this year.

[Terence Lee]

Mariana, why are you not attending the concerts this year?

[mariana44]

Several reasons Terence--but the main one is financial.

[Terence Lee]

Marian, how about attending just one concert, the venue nearest to you?

[mariana44]

Hi Terence--the nearest one to me would be the O2 arena---by the time I have paid dog kennels--plus getting them to and from the kennels--plus train fares, plus hotel in London---plus a meal out with friends--not to mention concert ticket--that could easily be going on for £500.00---and the O2 is such a large place---I could pay a big price and still be miles from the stage----so I am resigned to not going--I cannot justify paying that sort of money on one concert, when I have stuff at home I need to do--it was different when I was working, but not so easy on a single pension !!! I just hope my friends who do go, remember me with a photo or 2, etc, etc.

Plus I really want to get to the Fans Reunited in September--that is my main prority now !!