Heavenly

Performer: Johnny Mathis
Distributor: Sony Music Distribution (

Notes: Orchestra conducted by Glenn Osser. Available with FAITHFULLY on 1 cassette, and with GREATEST HITS and LIVE in a CD 3-pack. Personnel includes: Johnny Mathis (vocals); Glenn Osser (conductor). Heavenly is Johnny Mathis' most successful regular album release, exceeded in his catalog only by the compilation Johnny's Greatest Hits and the seasonal Merry Christmas collection. It's not hard to understand why; this record is the epitome of Mathis' approach to music. Standards like "More Than You Know" and "Moonlight Becomes You" are joined by show tunes like "Hello, Young Lovers" and "Stranger in Paradise" and a few more recent titles, such as the Burt Bacharach-composed title song and "That's All." The tempos are slow, the strings swell, and Mathis' vulnerable tenor, dripping with tender emotion yet never missing a beat, soars and swoops over all. The best track, a revelation when it appeared on this album, is "Misty," a treatment of Erroll Garner's jazz piano classic with a newly added lyric by Johnny Burke. Few could have carried off that lyric (go ahead, try and think of another male singer of the '50s who could handle it), but it was perfect for Mathis, and the track was spun off for a single that became his biggest hit in two years and remains one of his signature songs. Though still fairly early in his career, Mathis had done a lot of recording; Heavenly was actually his tenth album release in less than three years (counting two hits collections and the Christmas album). As a result, he was a recording veteran while still being fresh enough to give his performances real feeling. It all came together on Heavenly, Mathis' longest running number one album which spent more than five-and-a-half years in the charts. ~ William Ruhlmann

Although Johnny Mathis got his start as a jazz singer, his velvety 1956 hit "Wonderful, Wonderful" set the course for the rest of his career as a smooth pop crooner and key supplier of make-out music. He maintained a steady career course over the following decades, and in the late '70s enjoyed a renewed popularity, scoring a few high-charting duets with Deniece Williams. One of the most popular recording artists of all time, Mathis has reputedly sold over 350 million records, and his 1958 greatest-hits collection--the first compilation of its kind--stayed on the U.S. charts for almost 10 years. Past his 50th year in show business, Mathis was still recording and performing, his special brand of silky pop balladeering never quite falling out of favor.

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