Johnny Mathis

Johnny Mathis Bio

John Royce Mathis (born September 30, 1935) is an American singer whose career has spanned more than seven decades. Recognized as one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, he built his reputation on a smooth, romantic vocal style that became known as the velvet voice. Mathis is a long-tenured Columbia Records artist whose album-oriented approach helped redefine popular music marketing in the late 1950s.

Beginning his professional career in 1956, Mathis has placed 73 albums on the Billboard charts and sold millions of records across traditional pop, jazz, show tunes, rhythm and blues, country, and Christmas music. He has received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, multiple Grammy Hall of Fame inductions, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. His influence on adult contemporary and romantic ballad singing remains widely felt in American popular music.

Early Life and Background

John Royce Mathis was born in Gilmer, Texas, on September 30, 1935, the fourth of seven children of Clem Mathis and Mildred Boyd, both domestic cooks. The family later moved to San Francisco when Mathis was five years old, settling in the Richmond District on 32nd Avenue. He grew up in a household that valued music, with his father having worked in vaudeville as a singer and pianist.

Clem Mathis recognized his son’s vocal talent early and bought an old upright piano for $25, encouraging the boy’s musical pursuits. Mathis learned songs and routines from his father, and his parents ran his fan club. His first song was My Blue Heaven, and he began performing for visitors at home, school, and church functions. When Mathis was 13, voice teacher Connie Cox accepted him as her student in exchange for housework, and he studied vocal scales, voice production, and classical singing with her for six years.

Mathis attended George Washington High School in San Francisco, where he became an active member of the student body and a clear vocal talent. He was a star athlete as a high jumper, hurdler, and basketball player, and he enrolled at San Francisco State College in 1954 on an athletic scholarship. At the college, he set a high jump record of 1.97 meters, one of the school’s top jump heights and only seven centimeters short of the 1952 Olympic record.

Path to Singing

While studying at San Francisco State, Mathis was asked to try out for the U.S. Olympic Team that traveled to Melbourne in November 1956. On his father’s advice, he declined and chose to pursue a professional singing career instead. He withdrew from college after three semesters to commit fully to music, a decision that launched one of the most successful recording careers in American popular song.

Mathis gained early experience singing at a Sunday afternoon jam session with a friend’s jazz sextet at the Black Hawk Club in San Francisco, where he attracted the attention of co-founder Helen Noga. She became his manager and secured him weekend work at Ann Dee’s 440 Club. In September 1955, Noga persuaded Columbia Records A&R head George Avakian to hear Mathis perform, and after that audition Avakian sent a telegram describing a phenomenal 19-year-old boy who could go all the way.

Johnny Mathis Career

Early Career (1956-1957)

Mathis signed with Columbia Records and released his first album, Johnny Mathis: A New Sound In Popular Song, a jazz recording that sold slowly. His second album was produced by Columbia vice president Mitch Miller, who helped define the Mathis sound by pairing him with conductor and arranger Ray Conniff, and later Ray Ellis, Glenn Osser, and Robert Mersey. This collaboration established the soft romantic ballad style that would become his signature.

In late 1956, Mathis recorded two of his most popular songs, Wonderful! Wonderful! and It’s Not for Me to Say. That same year, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer signed him to perform the latter song in the movie Lizzie. In June 1957, he appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, which broadened his television audience. Later in 1957, he released Chances Are, his second single to sell one million copies, followed by Wild Is the Wind, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Breakthrough (1958-1963)

The week before Mathis appeared at the 1958 Academy Awards ceremony, his album Johnny’s Greatest Hits was released. The album spent an unprecedented 490 consecutive weeks on the Billboard Top 200, including three weeks at number one, and held the record for the most weeks on the Billboard 200 for 15 years. Later in 1958, he made his second film appearance for 20th Century Fox, singing A Certain Smile in the film of the same title, another song nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

By the end of 1958, Mathis was set to earn $1 million a year, and critics had begun calling him the velvet voice. In 1959, his album Heavenly topped the Billboard album chart for five weeks during a historic 295-week run. He had two of his biggest hits in 1962 and 1963 with Gina and What Will Mary Say, and in 1962 Ebony magazine listed him among 100 Richest Negroes in America. Mathis remained with Columbia Records from 1956 to 1963.

Notable Works and Milestones

Mathis’s signature work is Johnny’s Greatest Hits, which set longevity records on the Billboard 200 and helped establish the album as a commercial format in popular music. His catalog includes hits such as Chances Are, Wonderful! Wonderful!, Wild Is the Wind, and the 1978 duet Too Much, Too Little, Too Late with Deniece Williams, which reached number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. Five of his albums have appeared on the Billboard charts simultaneously, an achievement equaled by only Frank Sinatra, Barry Manilow, and Prince.

Johnny Mathis Award Nominations

Johnny Mathis has earned recognition across decades for his contributions to popular song. His recording Wild Is the Wind earned a 1958 nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Song, and his performance of A Certain Smile received a similar nomination the same year. In 1978, his duet The Last Time I Felt Like This, from the film Same Time, Next Year, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song, and he performed it at the ceremony with Jane Olivor.

Johnny Mathis Awards Won

Mathis has received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences in 2003, recognizing his creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance. He has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame three times, for Chances Are in 1998, Misty in 2002, and It’s Not for Me to Say in 2008. In 1972, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to music.

In 2006, Mathis was presented the Society of Singers Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2014 he was inducted into the Great American Songbook Hall of Fame alongside Linda Ronstadt, Shirley Jones, and Nat King Cole. He also received the Hit Parade Hall of Fame induction in 2007, the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 2011, and an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from San Francisco State University in 2017.

Johnny Mathis Family

John Royce Mathis was born the fourth of seven children to Clem Mathis and Mildred Boyd, both of whom worked as domestic cooks. His father had earlier worked in vaudeville as a singer and pianist and later encouraged his son’s musical development, purchasing a piano and supporting his training. Mathis is African-American and has said that he has Native American ancestry on his mother’s side.

Personal Life

Mathis has been a resident of the Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles, California, where he owned a home for 56 years before it was destroyed by fire in November 2015. In January 2023, a powerful storm caused a hillside collapse near his rebuilt home on Sunset Plaza Drive, cutting off utilities and leaving structural stability uncertain. He is a convert to Catholicism, has undergone rehabilitation for alcoholism and prescription drug addiction, and has supported organizations including the American Cancer Society, the March of Dimes, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, and the NAACP.

Mathis is an avid golfer with nine holes-in-one to his credit, hosts the annual Johnny Mathis Invitational Track and Field Meet at San Francisco State University, and has hosted charity golf tournaments in Belfast since 1985. In a 1982 Us magazine article, he acknowledged his homosexuality, later saying the comment was meant to be off the record. In 2017, he confirmed to CBS News Sunday Morning that he is gay, saying he knew it from his years in San Francisco. In March 2025, he announced his retirement from touring due to age and memory issues and performed his final concert on May 18, 2025.