That's What Friends Are For is an album by American singers Johnny Mathis and Deniece Williams that was released in July 1978 by Columbia Records. The project was a continuation of the pairing of the artists that began on his previous LP, You Light Up My Life, which included "Too Much, Too Little, Too Late", the duet that was on its way to number one on three different charts in Billboard magazine as the recording sessions for this album got underway.
I'll Buy You a Star is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on February 27, 1961, by Columbia Records and was the first of two album collaborations with arranger and conductor Nelson Riddle. This LP includes both ballads and swinging uptempo material throughout a mix of songs that range from the new to the familiar and obscure.
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".
Those Were the Days is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on November 6, 1968, by Columbia Records. It followed the formula of including covers of recent hit songs, the oldest, in this case, being "The End of the World", which hadn't been on the charts since 1963. Two of the 10 tracks, however, had not been released as singles by other artists: "Every Time I Dream of You", which had appeared as an instrumental on Bert Kaempfert's 1967 album Love That Bert Kaempfert, and "You Make Me Think About You", which was first heard in the 1968 film With Six You Get Eggroll.
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.
You've Got a Friend is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on August 11, 1971, by Columbia Records. The phrase "Today's Great Hits" can be found above the title on both sides of the record jacket as well as both sides of the LP label as if to emphasize that this is essentially an album covering songs that were recently on the charts. This was a common practice of many vocalists of the period, so much so in fact that fellow Columbia artist Andy Williams also released an album titled You've Got a Friend in August 1971 on which he coincidentally covers seven of the 11 tracks that Mathis recorded for this album.
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.
Me and Mrs. Jones is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released in January 1973 by Columbia Records. While it does cover several big chart hits of the day like his last album, Song Sung Blue, did, it also includes songs that didn't make the US Top 40 or had never charted.
The Heart of a Woman is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on November 25, 1974 by Columbia Records. Produced by ex-Motowner Johnny Bristol, the LP is made up mostly of new material, in that only three of the 10 songs had already been recorded by other artists.
When Will I See You Again is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released in March 1975 by Columbia Records and was again predominantly composed of covers of recent hit songs by other artists.
Feelings is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on October 20, 1975, by Columbia Records and strayed slightly from the practice of covering hits by other artists to include two new songs, both of which were written by Jerry Fuller: "Hurry Mother Nature" and "That's All She Wrote", which Ray Price took to number 34 on the Country chart the following spring.
I Only Have Eyes for You is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on May 10, 1976, by Columbia Records and included two new songs, "Yellow Roses on Her Gown" and "Ooh What We Do", which was written specifically for him, as well as a contemporary arrangement of the 1934 title track that foreshadowed his recordings of standards that incorporated a disco beat a few years later.
You Light Up My Life is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on March 13, 1978, by Columbia Records. While this LP includes three new songs, it doesn’t stray too far from the format of his albums of recent years in covering established material, including a standard, a country number, something from Broadway, and a few soundtrack tunes.
Different Kinda Different is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis, released on June 16, 1980, by Columbia Records. It included covers of two standards and two recent hits. It also continued the trend of recording duets with a female singer; for this project Paulette McWilliams shared vocal duties on two of the six new songs.
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.
Friends in Love is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on April 5, 1982, by Columbia Records and included six original songs, two of which were duets with Dionne Warwick.
Right from the Heart is an album by the American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on March 18, 1985, by Columbia Records. It was his first album without songs that were previously recorded by other artists. The title track is one of the album's four ballads that, along with four of the remaining six up-tempo tracks, delve into the subject of relationships, but it is the synth-driven "Step by Step" and the anthemic "Hold On" on which Mathis take a break from the usual focus on love songs. The former offers the hope that can be found in change that comes gradually until "I can see the way free from yesterday to a new beginning". The latter stresses the importance of being oneself: "Life is a party. Why don't you come the way you are?"
In the Still of the Night is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on August 8, 1989, by Columbia Records and continues the trend that began with his 1986 collaboration with Henry Mancini, The Hollywood Musicals, in that the project is devoted to a specific theme that ties the songs together. Mathis hints at the theme for this album in the liner notes for his 1993 box set The Music of Johnny Mathis: A Personal Collection, where he gives his thoughts on the 1964 Little Anthony and the Imperials song "I'm on the Outside Looking In" that he covered for his 1988 album Once in a While: "That was group singers' kind of material. I was singing other stuff. It wasn't the picture of the lone crooner standing in the spotlight. That's what I was doing when all this other stuff was going on. I never listened to it until it was brought to my attention by [that album's producers] Peter Bunetta and Rick Chudacoff." Mathis chose to continue his work with Bunetta and Chudacoff on this project, which focuses on "this other stuff" that Mathis refers to: pop and R&B hits from the 1950s and 1960s.
Johnny Mathis has recorded 73 studio albums, 10 of which achieved sales of 500,000 units and were awarded Gold certification by the Recording Industry Association of America. Six of his compilation albums also accomplished this, and of these 16 Gold albums, six eventually went Platinum by reaching sales of one million copies. In 1999, sales figures totaled five million for his first holiday LP, Merry Christmas, and three million for Johnny's Greatest Hits, a 1958 collection that has been described as the "original greatest-hits package" and once held the record for most weeks on Billboard magazine's album chart with a total of 490. His second longest album chart run was the 295 weeks belonging to his Platinum 1959 album Heavenly, which gave him five weeks in the top spot. In a ranking of the top album artists of the last half of the 1950s in terms of Billboard chart performance, he comes in at number two, for the 1960s, number 10, and for the period from 1955 to 2009 he is at number six.
