Johnny's Greatest Hits | ||||
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Greatest hits album by | ||||
Released | March 17, 1958 [1] | |||
Recorded | September 20, 1956 June 16, 1957 October 1, 1957 October 31, 1957 January 7, 1958 [1] | |||
Studio | CBS 30th Street Studio New York City | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 32:47 | |||
Label | Columbia | |||
Producer | Mitch Miller [1] Al Ham [A] | |||
Johnny Mathis chronology | ||||
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Alternate covers | ||||
Alternative cover | ||||
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | link |
The Billboard | positive [3] |
Johnny's Greatest Hits is a compilation album by vocalist Johnny Mathis that was released by Columbia Records on March 17,1958, [1] and has been described as the "original greatest-hits package". [2] The LP collected all but one of the songs from the first six singles he recorded,including eight A- and B-sides that made the singles charts in The Billboard (now simply known as Billboard magazine) as well as three B-sides that did not chart and one new track ("I Look at You") that was co-written by Mathis but not released as a single.
The album made its debut on the Best Selling Pop LPs chart in the issue of The Billboard dated April 14,1958,and eventually spent three weeks at number one. [4] It had its last appearance there over 10 years later,in the July 20,1968,issue,which marked its 490th non-consecutive week there, [5] a record for the most weeks on the magazine's list of the most popular pop albums in the US that it held for 15 years until Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon reached 491 weeks there in the issue dated October 29,1983. [6] Johnny's Greatest Hits received gold certification from the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of 500,000 copies in June 1959, [7] and Platinum certification for reaching the one million mark was awarded on November 1,1999. [8]
The album was initially only available in the monaural format but was reissued in 1962 with a banner added to the original cover that read,"Electronically Re-channeled for Stereo". [9] In 1977,the album was once again reissued,this time with a new jacket design that included a current and much larger headshot of Mathis. This cover was also used for its first release on compact disc in 1988 [10] and as part of a 1995 three-disc set that included his Platinum 1959 album Heavenly and his 1984 concert album Live . [11]
Robert Christgau insisted that "Wonderful! Wonderful!","It's Not for Me to Say","Chances Are","The Twelfth of Never",and "Wild Is the Wind" "are the substance of Mathis's legend and legacy. Poised on the cusp of black and white,masculine and feminine,they projected an image of egoless tenderness,an irresistible breath of sensuality that infused the airwaves for the second half of 1957 and kept 1958's Johnny's Greatest Hits on the album chart for 490 weeks." [12]
AllMusic's Cub Koda simply proclaimed,"It seldom gets more romantic than this." [2]
Moon River: The Very Best of Andy Williams is a compilation album by American pop singer Andy Williams that was released on October 13, 2009. A note from Williams inside the CD booklet explains that the album "was put together to coincide with my memoir Moon River and Me, published by Viking/Penguin. It includes many of the songs that you made hits. I truly appreciate that, and I hope you enjoy the songs we selected for this CD." The collection covers a wide assortment of his material, including crossover hits, stabs at the youth market, a pair of Mancini-Mercer Oscar winners, a Christmas classic, and a eulogy to Robert F. Kennedy.
More Johnny's Greatest Hits is a compilation album by Johnny Mathis that was released by Columbia Records on June 22, 1959, and contains the A- and B-sides of five of his singles as well as "Teacher, Teacher", the chart hit that was the B-side of the Johnny's Greatest Hits track "All the Time", and "The Flame of Love," which had not been released before.
Portrait of Johnny is a compilation album by Johnny Mathis that was released by Columbia Records on July 17, 1961, and described on the cover as "The Third in the Johnny Mathis Greatest Hits Series". Seven B-sides of chart hits are included along with four of the corresponding A-sides that made it onto the Billboard Hot 100 or "bubbled under" it and one song from a single that had neither side chart in Billboard magazine.
Johnny's Newest Hits is a compilation album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released by Columbia Records on February 25, 1963, and includes the A- and B-sides of six of his singles.
I'll Search My Heart and Other Great Hits is a compilation album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released by Columbia Records in April 1964 and gathered up five A-sides that reached the Billboard Hot 100, a corresponding B-side, and six songs that had previously been unreleased.
The Great Years is a compilation album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released by Columbia Records in July 1964. Billboard magazine described the two-LP set, which included chart hits and album tracks, as "the best of Mathis".
People is a compilation album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released in the summer of 1969 by Columbia Records at the same time as another Mathis compilation, The Impossible Dream. Both releases include ten tracks from albums that he recorded during his time with Mercury Records between 1963 and 1967.
Johnny Mathis Sings the Music of Bacharach & Kaempfert is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released in the fall of 1970 by Columbia Records. While one half of the two-record set was a compilation of tracks from his previous albums that were composed by Burt Bacharach, the other consisted of new recordings of songs composed by Bert Kaempfert, including a new version of "Strangers in the Night", which Mathis had already recorded in 1966 for his LP Johnny Mathis Sings. Although the Kaempfert tribute was similar to recent Mathis albums in that he was mainly covering songs made popular by other singers, it was absent of hits from the 12 months previous to its release that had become the pattern of his output at this point. The latest US chartings of any of the Kaempfert compositions as of this album's debut came from 1967 recordings of "Lady" by Jack Jones and "The Lady Smiles" by Matt Monro.
Christmas Eve with Johnny Mathis is the fourth Christmas album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on September 23, 1986, by Columbia Records. This was Mathis's fourth holiday-themed LP and focused exclusively on secular material.
Johnny Mathis' All-Time Greatest Hits is a compilation album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released in the spring of 1972 by Columbia Records and, despite its title, overlooks a good number of his Top 40 hits in favor of his singles that did not make the Billboard Hot 100 and album tracks that were not released as singles.
Mathis Is... is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on February 21, 1977, by Columbia Records and reunites the singer with producer Thom Bell for the first time since their collaboration on I'm Coming Home in 1973. As with that project, Mathis Is... focuses primarily on new songs, the one exception being a cover of "Sweet Love of Mine" from the 1975 Pick of the Litter album by The Spinners.
The First 25 Years – The Silver Anniversary Album is a compilation album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released in 1981 by Columbia Records. The back cover of the album notes that there are four new tracks. A cover of the Commodores hit "Three Times a Lady" had been released on the UK version of his 1980 album Different Kinda Different, which was retitled All for You, but the Mathis rendition of the song makes its US debut here.
Celebration – The Anniversary Album is a compilation album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released in the UK in 1981 by the CBS Records division of Columbia. Two of the covers on this release had not previously been included on any Mathis album: Stevie Wonder's "If It's Magic" and a new version of Mathis's 1976 song "When a Child Is Born" that was recorded with Gladys Knight & the Pips and reached number 74 on the UK singles chart during a two-week run that began on December 26, 1981.
Live is a live album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released in October 15, 1984, by Columbia Records and includes performances of some of his classics, songs from recent albums, and three selections that have never appeared on a Mathis studio album.
16 Most Requested Songs is a compilation album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released in 1986 by Columbia Records and features 12 tracks representing his time with the label from 1956 to 1963, including his Billboard top 10 hits "Chances Are", "It's Not for Me to Say", "The Twelfth of Never", "Gina", and "What Will Mary Say" as well as his signature song, "Misty". The remaining four selections were recorded with Columbia between 1969 and 1977.
The Christmas Music of Johnny Mathis: A Personal Collection is a compilation album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released in October 1993 by Columbia Records and included selections from the four Christmas albums that he had recorded to date: Merry Christmas, Sounds of Christmas, Give Me Your Love for Christmas, and Christmas Eve with Johnny Mathis.
Gold: A 50th Anniversary Christmas Celebration is a compilation album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on September 19, 2006, by Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings. It includes selections from four of the first five Christmas albums that he had recorded: Merry Christmas, Sounds of Christmas, Christmas Eve with Johnny Mathis, and The Christmas Album. Two tracks that were recorded with other artists are also included: "O Tannenbaum", which comes from Mannheim Steamroller's 2001 album Christmas Extraordinaire, and a medley duet of "Winter Wonderland" and "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!" with Bette Midler from her 2006 holiday album Cool Yule.
Gold: A 50th Anniversary Celebration is a compilation album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on November 21, 2006, by Columbia Records and takes the first 13 of its 18 tracks from the first four years of his recording career. The collection then jumps ahead 27 years for the remaining five songs, two of which had not been released elsewhere: "So Many Stars" comes from the recording date of an unfinished Sergio Mendes project, and "The Shadow of Your Smile" was later featured on the 2007 Dave Koz album At the Movies.
The Singles is a four-disc box set by the American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released in 2015 by Columbia Records to commemorate the singer's 80th birthday. In his review of the collection Joe Marchese explains that it "doesn't bring together every track released by the legendary artist on 45 RPM; such an endeavor would take far more than four discs. Instead, it features the tracks originally released by Mathis on Columbia in the singles format – in other words, non-LP sides – between the years of 1956 and 1981, in their original single mixes." His description of the compilation echoes that of the compilation's producer Didier C. Deutsch in the liner notes as explanation for the exclusion of the hit singles "Misty" from Heavenly (1959) and his "Too Much, Too Little, Too Late" duet with Deniece Williams from You Light Up My Life (1978). Deutsch excuses these as "songs extracted from specific albums to call attention to these albums." The set does, however, include "Ten Times Forever More" and "I Was There" from his 1971 LP, Love Story, and a shorter version of "If We Only Have Love" than the one that was included on his other 1971 album, You've Got a Friend.
The Voice of Romance: The Columbia Original Album Collection is a 68-disc box set by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on December 8, 2017, by Legacy Recordings, a division of Sony Music Entertainment. The packaging noted that it includes 67 albums that have been remastered, several of which were being made available on CD for the first time. Two of those, I Love My Lady and The Island, were debuting in their entirety for the first time anywhere, and 38 of the bonus tracks included had also previously gone unreleased.