Paul Francis Webster was an American lyricist who won three Academy Awards for Best Original Song, and was nominated sixteen times for the award.
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.
"April Love" is a popular song with music by Sammy Fain and lyrics by Paul Francis Webster. It was written as the theme song for a 1957 film of the same name starring Pat Boone and Shirley Jones and directed by Henry Levin.
"Meditation" is a bossa nova and jazz standard song composed by Antônio Carlos Jobim and Newton Mendonça. The English version has lyrics by Norman Gimbel. In Finland, the song was recorded in 1963 by Olavi Virta with lyrics by Sauki under the title "Hymy, flower and love". Erkki Liikanen recorded the song in 1967 with lyrics by Aarno Raninen under the title "Taas on hiljaisuus".
"The Shadow of Your Smile", also known as "Love Theme from The Sandpiper", is a popular song. The music was written by Johnny Mandel with the lyrics written by Paul Francis Webster. The song was introduced in the 1965 film The Sandpiper, with a trumpet solo by Jack Sheldon and later became a minor hit for Tony Bennett. It won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year and the Academy Award for Best Original Song. In 2004 the song finished at number 77 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs poll of the top tunes in American cinema.
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.
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.
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.
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".
Tender Is the Night is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released by Mercury Records on January 23, 1964 and included selections from stage and screen as well as two new songs from "Fly Me to the Moon" composer Bart Howard.
The Wonderful World of Make Believe is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released by Mercury Records on July 10, 1964, and described by Greg Adams of Allmusic, who wrote, "The theme is fantasy, from imaginary locations to fanciful yearnings to vague, idealized realms ."
The Shadow of Your Smile is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released by Mercury Records in March 1966, and included covers of the same two Beatles songs that would be in stores one month later on an Andy Williams album of the same name. Mathis also tackled recent easy listening fare on this album in addition to show tunes from On a Clear Day You Can See Forever and West Side Story.
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.
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.
The Mathis Collection is a compilation album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released in the UK in 1977 by CBS Records. The subtitle on the cover reads, "40 of my favorite songs", and a statement from Mathis in the liner notes says, "Songs are very personal things. On this double album I have attempted to put together a collection of those which are most meaningful for me. I hope they mean as much to you." The compilation includes six of the 12 songs that had reached the UK singles chart by the time of its release but focuses mainly on album tracks.
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 Very Best of Johnny Mathis is a compilation album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released in the UK in 2006 by Sony BMG and peaked at number six on the UK albums chart that same year. This collection has nine of his 17 UK singles chart entries, including his number-one solo version of "When a Child Is Born" and his number-three duet with Deniece Williams, "Too Much, Too Little, Too Late".
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 Ultimate Collection is a compilation album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released in the UK in 2011 by Sony Music Entertainment and reached number 17 on the UK albums chart that same year. This collection has 13 of his 17 UK singles chart entries as well as two tracks from his unreleased 1981 album I Love My Lady: the title song and "Something to Sing About".
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.
