"Lately" is a song by American singer Stevie Wonder recorded for his album Hotter than July (1980). The song reached number three in the United Kingdom, and was later covered by R&B group Jodeci and released as a promotional single for the live album Uptown MTV Unplugged in June 1993, which reached number one on the R&B charts and the top 5 on the Billboard Hot 100.
"When a Child Is Born" is a Christmas song, with a melody taken from the 1970 song "Tränen lügen nicht" by Michael Holm. The English lyrics were written a few years later by Austrian composer Fred Jay as a Christmas song. Versions of the song have been recorded by Michael Holm in 1974, Johnny Mathis, whose version was the 1976 Christmas number one in the UK, and Boney M, who included it on their hit 1981 Christmas Album.
"Feel Like Makin' Love" is a song composed by singer-songwriter and producer Eugene McDaniels, and recorded originally by soul singer-songwriter Roberta Flack. The song has been covered by R&B and jazz artists including Gladys Knight & the Pips, Lou Rawls, Isaac Hays, George Benson, Jeffrey Osborne, Larry Coryell, Johnny Mathis, and Marlena Shaw.
"And I Love You So" is a popular song written by folk singer and guitarist Don McLean and released on his 1970 debut album, Tapestry. Its chorus features an unusual rhyming scheme for a popular song: ABBA versus the usual AB(C or A)B.
Johnny's Greatest Hits is a compilation album by vocalist Johnny Mathis that was released by Columbia Records on March 17, 1958, and has been described as the "original greatest-hits package". 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 as well as three B-sides that did not chart and one new track that was co-written by Mathis but not released as a single.
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 Sweetheart Tree is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released by Mercury Records on September 30, 1965, and included songs associated with Italy, France, Ireland, and Scotland as well as several selections, such as "I'll Close My Eyes" and "The Very Thought of You", from English composers.
Love Is Blue is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on March 6, 1968, by Columbia Records and adhered even more strictly to the concept of the "cover" album of recent hits than its predecessor in that five of the 10 songs selected for the project were chart hits for the original artists within the previous year and another three had charted within the previous decade. Even the two remaining selections that did not bring chart success to the original artists were by the hit songwriting teams of Burt Bacharach and Hal David and John Lennon and Paul McCartney and left no room for the usual inclusion of some original songs or material from Broadway.
Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on February 25, 1970, by Columbia Records and included several covers of chart hits from the previous year along with 1964's "Watch What Happens" and the 1966 tunes "Alfie" and "A Man and a Woman".
"I'm Stone in Love with You" is a 1972 single by the Philadelphia soul group The Stylistics. The song is noted for lead singer Russell Thompkins Jr.'s distinctive falsetto singing, which he employs through most of the record. The song was written by Thom Bell, Linda Creed, and Anthony Bell.
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.
I'm Coming Home is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on September 21, 1973, by Columbia Records and was mainly composed of material written by the songwriting team of its producer, Thom Bell, and Linda Creed. Unlike several of the Mathis albums before it, I'm Coming Home relied primarily on new songs and included only two covers of established chart hits, both of which were by The Stylistics.
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.
Mathis Magic is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on September 17, 1979, by Columbia Records and contained an equal balance of new material and songs associated with other artists.
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".
A Special Part of Me is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on January 22, 1984, by Columbia Records and reunited him with his "Too Much, Too Little, Too Late" partner Deniece Williams on one of the LP's two duets, "Love Won't Let Me Wait", which is also the only song on the album that was previously recorded and released by another artist. This continuing trend away from the cover album genre would reach its limit with his next studio release, Right from the Heart, which only had original material.
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.
