Johnny Mathis will be in Jacksonville on February 26th to enchant his fans with over 50 years of beautiful melodies.The fourth of seven children, Johnny Mathis was born on September 30, 1935 in Gilmer, Texas. He became an instant lover of music when his father taught him his first song, “My Blue Heaven”, at age eight. As a child, he sang in the church choir, school functions, community events, for visitors in their home as well as amateur shows in the San Francisco area.
Johnny perfected his singing ability while studying with a voice teacher for six years and simultaneously became a star athlete on the track and field team as a high jumper and hurdler at George Washington High School. In 1954, he enrolled at San Francisco State College with the intention of being an English and Physical Education teacher. While pursuing his education, Johnny set a high jump record of 6’-5 1/2”, only two inches short of the Olympic record of the time, and was placed on San Francisco State College’s Top 15 list. His name was frequently mentioned in the sports sections of the Northern California newspapers and he was often referred to as “the best all-around athlete to come out of the San Francisco Bay Area”. Johnny continued his studies at San Francisco State and gained additional fame as a high jumper. In early 1956, he was asked to attend the trials for the 1956 Olympic teams that would travel to Melbourne, Australia that summer.
At the same time, Columbia Records requested that Johnny come to New York to start arrangements for his first recording session. Faced with the challenge of choosing passion over skill, Johnny was forced to make the biggest decision of his life. Urged by his father, he gave up the chance to become a member of the USA Olympic Team and instead chose to move to New York to record his first album in March of 1956, a collection of jazz oriented renditions of popular standards entitled: Johnny Mathis: A New Sound In Popular Song.
Unaware at the time, Johnny made a decision that would lead him on a surprisingly successful record-breaking journey. In June of 1957, he appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. “Wonderful, Wonderful” and “It’s Not For Me To Say” reached their peaks on the Billboard pop chart in July of 1957, followed by the monumental single “Chances Are” which became Johnny’s first #1 hit. In 1958, two years after being signed by Columbia Records, Johnny’s Greatest Hits was released and noted in the Guinness Book of World Records as one of the most popular albums of all time for spending almost ten years on the Billboard Top Albums Chart.
Johnny Mathis is one of only five recording artists to have Top 40 Hits spanning each of the four decades since 1955. Amazingly, his second #1 Hit Single, “Too Much, Too Little, Too Late” (recorded with Deniece Williams), came almost 21 years after his very first #1 Hit Single, “Chances Are”. Furthermore, Mathis has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame two times so far, in 1998, with "Chances Are" and in 2002 with "Misty". The Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences also presented him with the 2003 Lifetime Achievement Award.
Johnny Mathis has had over 75 Top 40 hits spanning across four decades. 2006 marked his 50th anniversary as a recording artist. Mathis will be performing a live rundown of his hits at the Times Union Center’s Moran Theater on Saturday, February 26, 2011 at 8:00pm. Visit www.artistseriesjax.org or contact The Artist Series at (904) 632-3373 for more information. Tickets are on sale now!
