| Faithfully | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | December 21, 1959 [1] | |||
| Recorded | November 4–6, 1959 [2] | |||
| Genre | Vocal [3] | |||
| Length | 45:33 | |||
| Label | Columbia | |||
| Producer | Mitch Miller [1] | |||
| Johnny Mathis chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Faithfully | ||||
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Faithfully is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on December 21, 1959, [1] by Columbia Records and continues his trend toward covering ballads alongside an orchestra. While his previous LPs usually offered one or two songs that had not been previously recorded, that number on this project leaped to five, and although the other seven selections were established by other artists, even some of those were lesser-known, such as Jeri Southern's number 30 pop hit "You Better Go Now" [4] and the title song from the 1953 film The Blue Gardenia .
The album made its first appearance on Billboard magazine's album chart in the issue dated January 18, 1960, and reached number two during its 75 weeks there. [5] it also debuted on the Cashbox albums chart in the issue dated January 6, 1960, and remained on the chart for the totals of 70 weeks, peaking at number two. [6] It received Gold certification from the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of 500,000 copies in the US on December 4, 1962. [7]
The Mathis recording of the West Side Story number "Maria" was released as a single on two occasions. The first came five months after Faithfully hit store shelves and included four weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 that began in the issue dated May 30 and led to a number 78 peak position. [8] and number 50 on the on the Cashbox singles chart during its seven weeks there. [9] The second followed the 1961 release of the film version of West Side Story and resulted in a number 88 showing during its three weeks on that same chart in December of that year. [8]
Faithfully was released for the first time on compact disc on June 21, 2002, as one of two albums on one CD, the other LP being his 1960 follow-up Johnny's Mood . [10] Faithfully was also included in Legacy's Mathis box set The Voice of Romance: The Columbia Original Album Collection, which was released on December 8, 2017. [11]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Billboard | positive [12] |
| The Encyclopedia of Popular Music | |
Billboard wrote, "The arrangements by Glenn Osser are lush and warm, and Mathis has never been in better voice." [12]
Cashbox says "A beautiful collection of ballads rendered in the sensitive Mathis style that points up another twelve reasons for Mathis’ stature as one of our top disk artists." [14]
From the liner notes for The Voice of Romance: The Columbia Original Album Collection : [2]