Mathis’ ‘Collection’ a Winner

You get a sense of the wide appeal of Johnny Mathis’ music by just looking at the photos in the booklet that accompanies “The Music of Johnny Mathis/A Personal Collection,” a four-disc set from Columbia/Legacy Records.

In the 68-page booklet, you see Mathis working or relaxing with such varied artists as Nat King Cole, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Judy Garland, Henry Mancini, Mitch Miller and Elvis Presley.

That same warm, photo-album intimacy is reflected throughout the set, partly because Mathis selected the 86 numbers and reminisces in the liner notes about each of them.

Mainly, however, the warmth is in Mathis’ voice, which seems as disarmingly pure and affecting today as it did in 1955 when he broke into the pop charts at age 21 with “Wonderful! Wonderful!”

Though Mathis’ sweet, romantic sound was far from the dominant rock style of the time, his voice was as much a radio fixture during the late ‘50s as that of any of the rockers. Among more than a dozen other Top 40 hits from the ‘50s alone: “It’s Not for Me to Say,” “Chances Are” and “The Twelfth of Never.”

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Although Mathis continues to record for Columbia, it is those early hits that remain his signature work. “Johnny’s Greatest Hits,” which was released in 1958 and includes all four of the cited hits, spent more time on the national album charts (490 weeks) than any other album of the modern pop era except Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon” (741 weeks).

The other selections in the Columbia/Legacy set range from additional hits--1962’s “Gina” to 1978’s “Too Much, Too Little, Too Late” duet with Deniece Williams--to lots of Broadway and film ballads and three previously unreleased recordings.

Just as there is often a sense of innocence and wonder in Mathis’ vocals, his comments about the various recordings also reveal a disarming modesty.

Reflecting on his 1957 recording of Johnny Burke and Jimmy Van Heusen’s “It Could Happen to You,” he writes: “I think when I first started recording I wanted to do everything that I loved. My great loves were Nat Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Lena Horne, Peggy Lee, June Christy, Chris Connor, the types who sang wonderful songs whose origins I didn’t know.

“I remember Ella singing ‘It Could Happen to You.’ I tried to sing it exactly the way she sang it. In fact, for the first 10 or 12 years of my life, all I did was try to sing like somebody else. Fortunately, something of my own came through.”

For Mathis fans, “A Personal Collection” is a winning documentation of a style that, modesty notwithstanding, does indeed carry its own engaging stamp.