Johnny Mathis’ career reads like a Guinness book of records, with each number more impressive than the next: at 86 years old, he’s been in show business for the last 65 years, 73 of his records have charted, and he’s released 200 singles! Soul, rhythm and blues, country, soft rock, disco, blues, show tunes – he’s covered almost every genre!
“I like to do everything,” he explains. “People think that because you’re a singer, you only sing one sort of thing, but they don’t know I grew up listening to country and western songs. The cowboy songs. My dad was a cowboy! He grew up in Texas and wore a cowboy hat all his life. He had all these recordings of cowboy songs. From the time I was a little kid, I had all this musical input in my life. It broadened my horizon.”
Talking to Johnny Mathis is like taking a time machine back to the San Francisco of the Fifties.
“My dad was my best pal,” he remembers. “He’s the one I first heard sing. I admired him so much that I tried to emulate him in every aspect of my life. By the time I was a little kid, he would take me all over San Francisco and let me hear people sing. Every jazz musician in the world came to San Francisco to perform, and I got to hear them play. Later in life, after I got my success, I got to meet them all. People like Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Sara Vaughn, Lena Horn, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, etc. I became friends with them later in life. It was possibly the best place that I could’ve ever been in, in that time of my life. From the time that I was a youngster, I had an opportunity to work at my craft with voice teachers, and also to perform on occasion at local theaters and nightclubs. There were so many of them. It was a very relaxed atmosphere. I was very young at the time, and many places didn’t allow youngsters to sing, but in San Francisco, it was ok. They were a little bit ahead of their time. It was a wonderful place to grow up in if you wanted to become a singer later.”
Mathis was signed at 19 years old to Columbia Records in 1955. He recorded two of his most popular songs, Wonderful! Wonderful! and It's Not for Me to Say. In 1957 he released Chances Are, which became his second single to sell a million copies.
His Greatest Hits album spent an unprecedented 490 consecutive weeks through 1967 (nearly ten years) on the Billboard top 200 album chart, including three weeks at number one. Critics called him "the velvet voice." During the British Invasion and dominance of album rock, Mathis’ career slowed down a bit. But in the late seventies, Mathis experienced a career renaissance. He had a 1976 Christmas number one single in the UK, with the song When a Child Is Born. In 1978, Mathis recorded Too Much, Too Little, Too Late with singer Deniece Williams, which went to number one. Mathis has also recorded no less than six albums of Christmas songs, so he’s the perfect person to settle the age-old debate - when is it too early to play Santa’s favorite tunes?
“You can sing Christmas songs in the middle of summer, as far as I’m concerned,” he says with a hearty laugh. “There are no borders as far as music is concerned, in my life. There are certain times of the year, when the air is a certain way, which almost instinctively tells you what song to sing. It’s just common sense.”
Very often, when singers get older, they lose their power and their range. Father Time always wins – or does he? Recent live videos of Mathis on YouTube attest that he still sings exceptionally well. How does he account for this?
“You know, so much depends on the individual,” he explains. “But I will tell you that when I was a youngster, I was a hurdler and a jumper on the track team. I also played basketball with a man named Bill Russell, who went on to become a legend in the NBA. All these things have played a very big part, not only with my singing, but also with what I sing.”
It’s not only about when Mathis sings, but also when he doesn’t sing.
“Usually, if you talk to singers, the thing they’re most concerned about is not overusing their voice,” he reveals. “Save your voice. Make sure it’s working properly. Shut up, shut up, shut up! Don’t talk, don’t sing. Save it for the performance! Maintain your quietness. Revere the fact that you have a gift, treasure it! That’s very important. I do physical exercises before going on stage. All you want to do is get your muscles going, the ones that support your vocal chords. As long as your voice muscles are working, you’ll be safe.”
Johnny Mathis is coming to the Valley to play at the Agua Caliente casino on February 5. He’s had a long history of coming to the desert.
“Living in San Francisco, and then spending time in LA, I was in Palm Springs for the weekend thousands of times,” he remembers. “I LOVE Palm Springs. The only thing I was ever concerned about in Palm Springs was the lack of moisture in the air. For a singer, that’s very important. Once you start your career as a singer, you find out what works for you and what doesn’t. You try to maintain what works, and one thing that works is ‘keep moisturizing, keep moisturizing!’” [laughs]
What can the audience coming to Rancho Mirage expect as far as the songs Johnny Mathis will perform? A bit of everything.
“I sing songs I used to sing with my dad, I sing songs I used to sing with my first voice teacher,” he says. “I include all of that in my performance, and it’s new for people who have never heard it. You never stop learning, you never stop finding ways to have people interested. It’s a wonderful existence. You get up in the morning, and the first thing you think of is [singing] ‘meee meee meee, maaaaa, maaa, maaa.’ Okay, I can sing! Enjoy it, revel in it and be grateful!”
