Merry Christmas is the first Christmas album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis and was released by Columbia Records on October 6, 1958. The selections are a mix of traditional Christmas carols and holiday hits.
Sounds of Christmas is the second holiday-themed album by vocalist Johnny Mathis and the first of his 11 studio projects for Mercury Records. His first yuletide effort, 1958's Merry Christmas, relied heavily on popular holiday carols and standards, but this 1963 release also included two new songs as well as covers of some lesser-known recordings by Andy Williams and Bing Crosby.
Good Night, Dear Lord is the fourth album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released by Columbia Records on March 3, 1958, and is the first of many projects undertaken over the course of his career that have a specific focus, which here happens to be religion. Several musical styles are covered, including spirituals, classical works, songs from the Jewish tradition, and 20th-century offerings.
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".
Faithfully is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on December 21, 1959, 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" and the title song from the 1953 film The Blue Gardenia.
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.
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".
Give Me Your Love for Christmas is the third Christmas album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis and was released by Columbia Records on October 13, 1969. The oldest song selected for this project was the 1934 classic "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town", which meant there were not the traditional hymns that could be found on his previous Christmas outings. He did, however, cover several other contemporary Christmas favorites along with a few new and lesser-known songs, such as the title track, which was a reworking of an unreleased recording of his from 1961, and "Christmas Day", which came from the then-current Broadway musical Promises, Promises. New versions of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" and "The Little Drummer Boy", which he also recorded in 1963 for his previous Christmas LP, Sounds of Christmas, made the final track list here as well.
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.
Love Story is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on February 10, 1971, by Columbia Records and included a recent Oscar nominee, a flashback to 1967 ("Traces"), a new song by Bacharach & David, a lesser-known one by Goffin & King, and two songs that originated in film scores from 1970 and had lyrics added later: the album closer, "Loss of Love", from Sunflower and the album opener from Love Story, which was subtitled "Where Do I Begin". The norm for Mathis projects from this era was to cover recent hits, and the title track of this one was so recent that the version by Andy Williams began a 13-week run to number nine on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart in February 1971, coinciding with the release of this LP.
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.
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.
Unforgettable – A Musical Tribute to Nat King Cole is a soundtrack album released in the UK in 1983 by the CBS Records division of Columbia in conjunction with the broadcast of American pop singer Johnny Mathis's BBC television concert special of the same name that featured Cole's daughter Natalie. The front of the original album jacket credits the concert performers as "Johnny Mathis and Natalie Cole", whereas the CD booklet reads, "Johnny Mathis with special guest Natalie Cole".
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.
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 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.
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.
The Complete Christmas Collection 1958–2010 is a three-disc box set by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released in 2015 by Real Gone Music under license from Columbia Records. The set includes Mathis's five holiday albums from the period in their entirety: Merry Christmas, Sounds of Christmas, Give Me Your Love for Christmas, Christmas Eve with Johnny Mathis, and The Christmas Album. It also compiles all of Mathis's holiday songs that were only released as singles, as well as thematically-appropriate tracks from his non-holiday albums: "When a Child Is Born" from I Only Have Eyes for You, the holiday version of "What a Wonderful World" from Let It Be Me, and his two recordings of "Ave Maria" from Good Night, Dear Lord, which bookend the set.
