Marian.
Johnny Mathis
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Terence Lee
- Posts: 1095
- Joined: Sat Nov 19, 2005 8:29 pm
- Location: Penang Island, Malaysia
- Contact:
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Terence Lee
- Posts: 1095
- Joined: Sat Nov 19, 2005 8:29 pm
- Location: Penang Island, Malaysia
- Contact:
-
Terence Lee
- Posts: 1095
- Joined: Sat Nov 19, 2005 8:29 pm
- Location: Penang Island, Malaysia
- Contact:
A Perfect Union: Johnny Mathis and Strings
by Robert Loerzel
Park Ridge (Illinois) Herald-Advocate, May 29, 2008
Johnny Mathis and the Chicagoland Pops Orchestra were made for each other.
The legendary singer's most famous records from the past 50 years often feature him crooning in front of lush string arrangements, which is exactly what the Chicagoland Pops and conductor Arnie Roth will provide when Mathis sings with the group Saturday in Rosemont.
Mathis, who has just released a new CD called "A Night to Remember," talked about his career in a recent phone interview from his home in California.
Q: How do you decide which songs to perform in concert?
A: A friend of mine, Patti Austin, who's a wonderful singer, said she has this group of songs called the Holy Trinity. I thought that was funny. I kind of have that. I have three songs, and if I sing the three songs -- "Chances Are," "Twelfth of Never" and "Misty" -- then I can usually sing just about anything I want to, because people feel like they've heard whatever Johnny Mathis is all about. So what I've done, at this point in my life, is try to pick the songs that suit my voice. I have a pretty wide range of choices. Along with the hits, I sing some Brazilian music, which I love.
Q: You've played with the Chicagoland Pops a couple of times before. Do you enjoy listening to all those strings as you're singing?
A: Oh yeah, I get goose bumps when I hear some of the introductions. When you have an orchestra like that, it's like you're floating on air. You never hit the ground. They keep you buoyant. It's quite a wonderful feeling. It's too bad everyone can't stand on a stage and sing with a large orchestra like that.
Q: Did your singing style come out of studying classical music or opera?
A: I studied voice with a lady, Connie Cox, for seven years. I sang and learned and even recorded a lot of classical-oriented music, just because I wanted to learn to sing properly. She thought that if I learned some of the classical music, I could sing all of the pop stuff that I wanted to. And she was really quite right. Over the years, my voice has held up very well. I haven't had any major problems. The voice changes, though, as you get older. You lose some things, you gain some things. Mostly, you learn how to sing a little better.
Q: Do you still do vocal exercises?
A: Mostly I do physical exercise. Vocally, if I don't have it now, it's too late. You really don't do any exercises. You try to keep yourself physically capable of singing.
Q: One of the things that's so distinctive about your voice is the vibrato. Did you come to that naturally?
A: Vibrato is something that you can't change. It is what it is. You open your mouth, and it comes out that way, and you never know why. I've learned to control my vibrato. But it's like the way you walk, or the way you pick up a fork, or the way you write. It's just natural to you. I hated it in the beginning, because it was really kind of pronounced. And then later on, it sort of balanced out.
Q: You had your first hits at the same time that Elvis Presley and rock 'n' roll music were big. Did you feel like there was a rivalry between your kind of music and rock music?
A: When I was growing up, I sang the way I sang because that's what I felt like singing. Sure, I tried to sing a little rock 'n' roll. It didn't sound very good, and it wasn't really something that I wanted to do night after night. But I was very aware of Elvis and all the rockers, and I appreciated what they did and I listened to it, but I never tried to do it with any sincerity myself.
Q: How would you define your music? Do you like any of the genre labels?
A: They do like to label it so they can say, "If you go to the record store, look in this bin." It's funny, because when I used to buy recordings, I used to find my recordings in the strangest places. Sometimes I'd find them under "jazz." Sometimes I'd find them under "middle of the road." (Laughs.) It was kind of like, "Ooh, that's mediocre." I went with "American pop," "songbook," that type of thing.
Q: Other than Christmas albums, your new album is the first one you've done in a while. How did this record come about?
A: The record company has a say in what I record, quite a lot. They know what they can sell as a product, and I know what I like to sing, so we kind of meet halfway. They asked me on this particular CD if I would sing songs made famous by other people. [One of the songs] I did was "Walk On By." I recorded and I performed with Dionne Warwick for over 20 years, and I loved her singing, so it was like an homage to her to sing her song. I got to sing with people like Gladys Knight on this. It was a lot of fun recording these songs. At this point in my life -- starting my career at 19 and still making CDs at the age of 72 -- it really is a wonderful feeling to be able to do what I do.
by Robert Loerzel
Park Ridge (Illinois) Herald-Advocate, May 29, 2008
Johnny Mathis and the Chicagoland Pops Orchestra were made for each other.
The legendary singer's most famous records from the past 50 years often feature him crooning in front of lush string arrangements, which is exactly what the Chicagoland Pops and conductor Arnie Roth will provide when Mathis sings with the group Saturday in Rosemont.
Mathis, who has just released a new CD called "A Night to Remember," talked about his career in a recent phone interview from his home in California.
Q: How do you decide which songs to perform in concert?
A: A friend of mine, Patti Austin, who's a wonderful singer, said she has this group of songs called the Holy Trinity. I thought that was funny. I kind of have that. I have three songs, and if I sing the three songs -- "Chances Are," "Twelfth of Never" and "Misty" -- then I can usually sing just about anything I want to, because people feel like they've heard whatever Johnny Mathis is all about. So what I've done, at this point in my life, is try to pick the songs that suit my voice. I have a pretty wide range of choices. Along with the hits, I sing some Brazilian music, which I love.
Q: You've played with the Chicagoland Pops a couple of times before. Do you enjoy listening to all those strings as you're singing?
A: Oh yeah, I get goose bumps when I hear some of the introductions. When you have an orchestra like that, it's like you're floating on air. You never hit the ground. They keep you buoyant. It's quite a wonderful feeling. It's too bad everyone can't stand on a stage and sing with a large orchestra like that.
Q: Did your singing style come out of studying classical music or opera?
A: I studied voice with a lady, Connie Cox, for seven years. I sang and learned and even recorded a lot of classical-oriented music, just because I wanted to learn to sing properly. She thought that if I learned some of the classical music, I could sing all of the pop stuff that I wanted to. And she was really quite right. Over the years, my voice has held up very well. I haven't had any major problems. The voice changes, though, as you get older. You lose some things, you gain some things. Mostly, you learn how to sing a little better.
Q: Do you still do vocal exercises?
A: Mostly I do physical exercise. Vocally, if I don't have it now, it's too late. You really don't do any exercises. You try to keep yourself physically capable of singing.
Q: One of the things that's so distinctive about your voice is the vibrato. Did you come to that naturally?
A: Vibrato is something that you can't change. It is what it is. You open your mouth, and it comes out that way, and you never know why. I've learned to control my vibrato. But it's like the way you walk, or the way you pick up a fork, or the way you write. It's just natural to you. I hated it in the beginning, because it was really kind of pronounced. And then later on, it sort of balanced out.
Q: You had your first hits at the same time that Elvis Presley and rock 'n' roll music were big. Did you feel like there was a rivalry between your kind of music and rock music?
A: When I was growing up, I sang the way I sang because that's what I felt like singing. Sure, I tried to sing a little rock 'n' roll. It didn't sound very good, and it wasn't really something that I wanted to do night after night. But I was very aware of Elvis and all the rockers, and I appreciated what they did and I listened to it, but I never tried to do it with any sincerity myself.
Q: How would you define your music? Do you like any of the genre labels?
A: They do like to label it so they can say, "If you go to the record store, look in this bin." It's funny, because when I used to buy recordings, I used to find my recordings in the strangest places. Sometimes I'd find them under "jazz." Sometimes I'd find them under "middle of the road." (Laughs.) It was kind of like, "Ooh, that's mediocre." I went with "American pop," "songbook," that type of thing.
Q: Other than Christmas albums, your new album is the first one you've done in a while. How did this record come about?
A: The record company has a say in what I record, quite a lot. They know what they can sell as a product, and I know what I like to sing, so we kind of meet halfway. They asked me on this particular CD if I would sing songs made famous by other people. [One of the songs] I did was "Walk On By." I recorded and I performed with Dionne Warwick for over 20 years, and I loved her singing, so it was like an homage to her to sing her song. I got to sing with people like Gladys Knight on this. It was a lot of fun recording these songs. At this point in my life -- starting my career at 19 and still making CDs at the age of 72 -- it really is a wonderful feeling to be able to do what I do.
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Terence Lee
- Posts: 1095
- Joined: Sat Nov 19, 2005 8:29 pm
- Location: Penang Island, Malaysia
- Contact:
Johnny Mathis Still Making People 'Misty' with Ballads
by Scott Mervis
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 11, 2008
A typical day in the life of Johnny Mathis begins with an early morning trip to the gym -- he used to be a track star, as you may recall -- continues with time at home preparing food for the evening (he knows his way around a kitchen, too) and then moves on to an afternoon at the golf course.
"It's a full day. It's a great day," he says on the phone from his Hollywood Hills home. "I prefer structure in the day, then I don't lose focus. I keep my mind where it's supposed to be."
This weekend the routine will be different as the 72-year-old singer is in town to perform tonight and Saturday with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, two concerts out of about 50 that Mathis still performs each year.
Mathis, a Texas native who started performing in 1955 and had his first hit with "Wonderful Wonderful" in 1957, is one of the few remaining legends from that era of popular music. Through that endurance run, he's never really taken a break, allowing him to compile a recording catalog of more than 100 albums.
Rather than just muddling through, recent reviews indicate that Mathis, who sounds surprisingly youthful on the phone, has his golden voice pretty much intact. The reason, he says, goes back a half-century.
"First of all, I don't know how I came about the voice I have. It's just one of those things. I was never conscious of the fact that my voice was different from anyone else's. My dad thought that because I loved to sing that I should study. He found a lady [Connie Cox in San Francisco] who taught me free of charge, so I had a foundation on how to sing."
Originally, he wanted to be a jazz singer, but he admits he probably wasn't best suited for that. It was Mitch Miller at Columbia Records who eased him toward the softer ballads and helped create the Johnny Mathis that made the young girls swoon.
"He thought my voice was suited for ballad singing and steered me in the right direction," Mathis says. "I wasn't cut out to be a jazz singer 'cause I'm really not very good at improvising. He said, 'I like your voice; I don't like what you're singing, and I don't like the way you're singing it, so try it this way.' And it kinda worked. It fit my personality. I was always kind of daydreaming, so this kind of music suits me, I think."
To this day, he loves going on stage to perform hits like "Chances Are," "Twelfth of Never" and, his personal favorite, "Misty," a song co-written by Pittsburgh great Erroll Garner and Johnny Burke.
"I'm lucky because I had some pretty good songs to sing. They were not frivolous, and they weren't foolish sounding. They were regular romantic ballads, and they've held up over the years. So, yeah, I get tired of that part of the performance where you go, 'Oh, how will I breathe new life into this after the billionth time singing it?' but you find yourself being a little grateful for it because people love to hear it. That's why they come. They want to be transported to that time when they remember that music. I know how much it means to them."
Mathis' last smash hit was the 1978 song "Too Much, Too Little, Too Late" with Dionne Warwick, which went to No. 1. But he continues to freshen the set. His new album, "A Night to Remember," is a collection of love songs from the '60s to '80s performed with the likes of Kenny G, Gladys Knight, Yolanda Adams and Dave Koz. "It's more or less songs made famous by other singers," he says.
Unlike Frank Sinatra or Tony Bennett, one thing Mathis has not done late in his career is experiment with pop-rock crossover artists.
"They kind of wanted me to," he says, "but I always wanted to sing with people who have beautiful voices. The rock stuff was good, but I couldn't see myself doing it."
Working with someone more polished like Josh Groban, for instance, would be more his speed.
"It's a trained voice, and he spent a lot of time working hard at it. People like Josh want to be good at their craft. I think sometimes the rockers want to be famous. They want to be hot stuff. For me, it means more when someone puts a little more effort into what they do."
Another popular project for a legend like Mathis is the biopic. We've seen them for Sinatra, Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, Bobby Darin. Could there be one in the works for the man who sang "Misty"?
"I guess there's been a couple of books written about my life -- nothing spectacular. " He adds with a laugh, "I probably should do it before someone else does it and gets it wrong."
by Scott Mervis
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 11, 2008
A typical day in the life of Johnny Mathis begins with an early morning trip to the gym -- he used to be a track star, as you may recall -- continues with time at home preparing food for the evening (he knows his way around a kitchen, too) and then moves on to an afternoon at the golf course.
"It's a full day. It's a great day," he says on the phone from his Hollywood Hills home. "I prefer structure in the day, then I don't lose focus. I keep my mind where it's supposed to be."
This weekend the routine will be different as the 72-year-old singer is in town to perform tonight and Saturday with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, two concerts out of about 50 that Mathis still performs each year.
Mathis, a Texas native who started performing in 1955 and had his first hit with "Wonderful Wonderful" in 1957, is one of the few remaining legends from that era of popular music. Through that endurance run, he's never really taken a break, allowing him to compile a recording catalog of more than 100 albums.
Rather than just muddling through, recent reviews indicate that Mathis, who sounds surprisingly youthful on the phone, has his golden voice pretty much intact. The reason, he says, goes back a half-century.
"First of all, I don't know how I came about the voice I have. It's just one of those things. I was never conscious of the fact that my voice was different from anyone else's. My dad thought that because I loved to sing that I should study. He found a lady [Connie Cox in San Francisco] who taught me free of charge, so I had a foundation on how to sing."
Originally, he wanted to be a jazz singer, but he admits he probably wasn't best suited for that. It was Mitch Miller at Columbia Records who eased him toward the softer ballads and helped create the Johnny Mathis that made the young girls swoon.
"He thought my voice was suited for ballad singing and steered me in the right direction," Mathis says. "I wasn't cut out to be a jazz singer 'cause I'm really not very good at improvising. He said, 'I like your voice; I don't like what you're singing, and I don't like the way you're singing it, so try it this way.' And it kinda worked. It fit my personality. I was always kind of daydreaming, so this kind of music suits me, I think."
To this day, he loves going on stage to perform hits like "Chances Are," "Twelfth of Never" and, his personal favorite, "Misty," a song co-written by Pittsburgh great Erroll Garner and Johnny Burke.
"I'm lucky because I had some pretty good songs to sing. They were not frivolous, and they weren't foolish sounding. They were regular romantic ballads, and they've held up over the years. So, yeah, I get tired of that part of the performance where you go, 'Oh, how will I breathe new life into this after the billionth time singing it?' but you find yourself being a little grateful for it because people love to hear it. That's why they come. They want to be transported to that time when they remember that music. I know how much it means to them."
Mathis' last smash hit was the 1978 song "Too Much, Too Little, Too Late" with Dionne Warwick, which went to No. 1. But he continues to freshen the set. His new album, "A Night to Remember," is a collection of love songs from the '60s to '80s performed with the likes of Kenny G, Gladys Knight, Yolanda Adams and Dave Koz. "It's more or less songs made famous by other singers," he says.
Unlike Frank Sinatra or Tony Bennett, one thing Mathis has not done late in his career is experiment with pop-rock crossover artists.
"They kind of wanted me to," he says, "but I always wanted to sing with people who have beautiful voices. The rock stuff was good, but I couldn't see myself doing it."
Working with someone more polished like Josh Groban, for instance, would be more his speed.
"It's a trained voice, and he spent a lot of time working hard at it. People like Josh want to be good at their craft. I think sometimes the rockers want to be famous. They want to be hot stuff. For me, it means more when someone puts a little more effort into what they do."
Another popular project for a legend like Mathis is the biopic. We've seen them for Sinatra, Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, Bobby Darin. Could there be one in the works for the man who sang "Misty"?
"I guess there's been a couple of books written about my life -- nothing spectacular. " He adds with a laugh, "I probably should do it before someone else does it and gets it wrong."
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Catherine M
- Posts: 87
- Joined: Wed Oct 25, 2006 5:42 pm
- Location: Essex, UK
Johnny Matthias - At Wembley Arena 2006
I saw Johnny Matthias at Wembley Arena with my mum in 2006. The place was full of women only. Mostly over the age of 40 and upwards.
It was great.
He came on in an all white suit. Even though the voice is a bit
shaky now he could still belt out the great numbers. He admitted that he is a bit arthritic and had to sit on a stool for the second half.
As a finale, he sang When a child is born and when he held the long
note at the end - he brought the house down.
I will always remember how he sauntered off the stage waving a welsh flag that one of the fans had handed him at the end.
I am definitely a fan.
It was great.
He came on in an all white suit. Even though the voice is a bit
shaky now he could still belt out the great numbers. He admitted that he is a bit arthritic and had to sit on a stool for the second half.
As a finale, he sang When a child is born and when he held the long
note at the end - he brought the house down.
I will always remember how he sauntered off the stage waving a welsh flag that one of the fans had handed him at the end.
I am definitely a fan.
I was there at that show too Catherine---I was so lucky because I had a front row seat, right in front of the mike.!!
He was a bit nervous as that was his first concert in the Uk for 10 years, and he had never played Wembley arena before--by the next concert in Birmingham he had settled down, and the last concert in Manchester was just brilliant. He was due to do a concert in Dublin, but for some unknown reason it was cancelled---after many of us had booked our flights and accomdation in Dublin !!! We heard it as down to the Promoter--but who knows??
He was a bit nervous as that was his first concert in the Uk for 10 years, and he had never played Wembley arena before--by the next concert in Birmingham he had settled down, and the last concert in Manchester was just brilliant. He was due to do a concert in Dublin, but for some unknown reason it was cancelled---after many of us had booked our flights and accomdation in Dublin !!! We heard it as down to the Promoter--but who knows??
Mariana
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Lena & Harry Smith
- Posts: 21514
- Joined: Tue Jul 12, 2005 10:05 am
- Location: London UK