Johnny Mathis Gold: A 50th Anniversary Celebration
Johnny Mathis's 2006 return to the spotlight was richly deserved, not because his career needed resurrecting--he's continued touring and recording for breathless fans well into his seventh decade--but because post-boomer generations shouldn't be allowed to roam the world asking "Johnny Who?" when his name gets mentioned. Mathis is that important an artist, and this compendium of his work, best thought of as a winking glance, does an able job of demonstrating why: "Chances Are," a slice of pop brilliance set to a piano with a broken heart, has always sounded as though it's been pulled off a silver platter. The Mathis voice--rich and deep at some turns, high and fragile at others, poured gold either way--seals it in timelessness; it's a pop scholar's very definition of a classic. "Wonderful! Wonderful!" throws off the same sparks to a lesser degree--delivery-wise, it's nearly impossible not to attach the word delightful, and overall it reeks of cultural importance. The rest of these songs add up to a case study in why Mathis matters: "Misty" may be dusty, but it still melts the heart. And "When Sunny Gets Blue," with its slow, sad strings, stings with Roy Orbison-caliber potency. Two previously unreleased tracks, "So Many Stars," produced by Sergio Mendes, and "The Shadow of Your Smile," with Dave Koz and Chris Botti, shine a light on Mathis's more recent work. It holds up brilliantly (not easy, considering Mathis's clean, distinctive voice). It also accounts, probably, for this disc's closing track--Ray Charles wouldn't have recorded his late-career rendition of "Over the Rainbow" with just anybody. If you didn't hear it onGenius Loves Company,hear it here.--Tammy La Gorce