John Royce Mathis is an American singer of popular music. Starting his career with singles of standard music, he became highly popular as an album artist, with several dozen of his albums achieving gold or platinum status and 73 making the Billboard charts. Mathis has received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for three recordings.
"Misty" is a jazz standard written in 1954 by pianist Erroll Garner. He composed it as an instrumental in the traditional 32-bar format, and recorded it for the album Contrasts. Lyrics were added later by Johnny Burke. It became the signature song of Johnny Mathis, appearing on his 1959 album Heavenly and reaching number 12 on the U.S. Pop Singles chart later that year.
Peter Nero is an American pianist and pops conductor. He directed the Philly Pops from 1979 to 2013, and has earned two Grammy Awards.
"It Might as Well Be Spring" is a song from the 1945 film State Fair. which features the only original film score by the songwriting team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. "It Might as Well Be Spring" won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for that year.
"Isn't It Romantic?" is a popular song and part of the Great American Songbook. The music was composed by Richard Rodgers, with lyrics by Lorenz Hart. It has a 32-bar chorus in A–B–A–C form. Alec Wilder, in his book American Popular Song: The Great Innovators 1900–1950, calls it "a perfect song."
When Harry Met Sally... is the soundtrack to the movie When Harry Met Sally... starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan. The songs are performed by pianist Harry Connick Jr., who won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Male Vocal Performance.
Johnny Mathis is the first studio album by vocalist Johnny Mathis that was released by Columbia Records in 1956. The subtitle A New Sound in Popular Song can be found on the back cover but not on the front of the album or the disc label; in fact, this Mathis LP has been referred to as "the jazz album".
Swing Softly is the fifth album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on July 28, 1958, by Columbia Records and was a departure from the ballads that accounted for the vast majority of singles and album tracks he had recorded thus far. This project features uptempo arrangements of popular standards, most of which originated in a movie or stage musicals, and a couple of new songs: "To Be in Love" and "Easy to Say ".
Open Fire, Two Guitars is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on January 5, 1959, by Columbia Records on which he opts for guitar and bass accompaniment instead of performing alongside an orchestra. Two new songs are mixed in with covers of popular standards.
Heavenly is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on August 10, 1959, by Columbia Records and marked his return to recording ballads with orchestral accompaniment. Along with the material that others had covered before are two new songs: the title track and "I'll Be Easy to Find".
The Rhythms and Ballads of Broadway is a double album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released in September 1960 by Columbia Records. Despite the order of the words in the title, the ballads actually make up sides one and two while the uptempo numbers fill sides three and four.
Johnny is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on July 15, 1963, by Columbia Records and later described on Allmusic as "a nice blend of standards, show tunes and then-new compositions."
Romantically is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on November 18, 1963, by Columbia Records and was also the final original studio album recorded by Mathis for the label prior to his moving to Mercury Records. Mathis had recorded exclusively for Columbia from 1956 to 1963. After a brief stint with Mercury, he returned to Columbia in 1967. His first Mercury project, Sounds of Christmas, was actually released six weeks before this one, on October 4.
I Love My Lady is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was completed in 1981 but not released in its entirety until December 8, 2017, when it was included in the box set The Voice of Romance: The Columbia Original Album Collection. It was written and produced by Chic founders Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers and represented an attempt at shifting away from the easy listening style of music that Mathis had been recording for 25 years to the more contemporary sound of the team behind "Le Freak" and "We Are Family".
The Hollywood Musicals is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis and American composer/conductor Henry Mancini that was released on October 17, 1986, by Columbia Records. This project heralded Mathis's return to the genre of traditional pop, which he would revisit occasionally over the next few decades.
Sending You a Little Christmas is the sixth Christmas album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on October 29, 2013, by Columbia Records. In addition to piano accompaniment on the title track by its composer Jim Brickman, this particular holiday release of original recordings is distinguished by duets with guest vocalists Susan Boyle, Natalie Cole, Gloria Estefan, Vince Gill, Amy Grant, Billy Joel, and The Jordanaires.
The Music of Johnny Mathis: A Personal Collection is a box set by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released in 1993 by Columbia Records and gave an overview of his career with four CDs containing 86 tracks that he selected himself. In the liner notes he wrote that his "undying gratitude is really to the lyricists and composers of all these memorable songs. Without the words and music I have sung over the years, my career as a singer would not have existed. My thanks is always to these special and gifted people."
Broadway is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was recorded in 1964 but not released by his then record label Mercury Records. The project first became commercially available on August 28, 2012, when Sony Music Entertainment released it as one of two albums on one compact disc, the other album being his 1965 LP Love Is Everything. Broadway was also included in Sony's Mathis box set The Complete Global Albums Collection, which was released on November 17, 2014.
Book of Ballads is a 1959 album by jazz singer Carmen McRae, arranged by Frank Hunter.
Unforgettable Songs by Johnny Hartman is a studio album by American jazz vocalist Johnny Hartman, released in 1966 by ABC-Paramount Records. Gerald Wilson served as the arranger and conductor, and the album was produced by Bob Thiele.
