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Johnny Mathis music biography continued...

Born John Royce Mathis in Gilmer, Texas on September 30 1935, Mathis was encouraged by his father, a former vaudevillian, to sing in church and at community events as a youngster. Mathis was signed to a management contract by club owner Helen Noga, who introduced the singer to George Avakian, jazz producer for Columbia Records, where Mathis was offered his first deal. Mathis promptly scored a slew of hit singles, including "It's Not For Me To Say" and "Chances Are." In 1958, Johnny's Greatest Hits was released and was the first ever Greatest Hits album in the music industry. It began the Greatest Hits tradition copied by every record company since. Johnny's Greatest Hits spent an unprecedented nine and a half years, and ushered in a period where the release of hit albums was consistent and dependable. He has had five of his albums on the Billboard charts simultaneously, an achievement equaled by only two other singers, Frank Sinatra and Barry Manilow. Mathis moved away from show tunes and traditional pop into soft rock during the '70s, and found his second number one single, "Too Much, Too Little, Too Late," recorded in 1978 as a duet with Deniece Williams. In 1982, he recorded an other hit single, "Friends in Love" with Dionne Warwick, and has since gone back to the studio to record hit duets with several entertainers, who love working with a pro as much as his fans love to listen to one.



Overall, Mathis has recorded over 100 albums of original music and sold more than 215 million albums and singles worldwide with approximately 130 million sales in the USA and fifty million U.K. sales alone. He has the distinction of having the longest stay of any recording artist on the Columbia Record label. He remains one of the few recording artists who have recorded original material and remained a popular concert attraction in six decades beginning in the 1950s. Mathis continues to perform but from 2000 onwards has limited his concert engagements to fifty to sixty appearances per year. Fans still can't seem to get enough of the man Johnny Carson anointed, "the best ballad singer in the world."