World Over - 2016-12-15 – Singing Legend Johnny Mathis with Raymond Arroyo

[Music] it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas soon the bells will start and the thing that will make them ring is Carol that you see my baby [Music] it's beginning to look like Christmas Christmas Christmas it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas especially after hearing my next yes welcome back to the world over of course that was Johnny Mathis this year marks his 60th anniversary in the recording industry and he's one of the most iconic voices anywhere he released his first album in 1956 and recorded his first number-one single chances are in 1957 since then he's landed 50 hits on the Billboard charts and sold millions of records all over the world he's particularly known for his Christmas albums his first one is still among the top 10 Christmas records of all time I sat down with him recently in Los Angeles to discuss his amazing career how he's managed to keep the purity of his voice at the age of 81 and how the love of family has shaped and sustained him all these years is my exclusive interview with the legendary Johnny Mathis and Huey 160 years of singing Johnny I mean recording this is the 60th anniversary of your recording career the longest-running artist at Columbia when I went back and looked you mentioned your father Clem who was really a hard-working man raised seven children seven children you said you learned music from him you learned singing the love of singing really to please him what I have never seen anywhere is what did your father sound like did he sound like you when he's yes he did we could be twins really yeah my dad and I sounded like but Dad sang very quietly he never sang too much and of course that's because first of all the type of songs that he chose to sing were very he called him sweet songs hmm no please I don't want to sing this way right and my dad was my hero my best pal my mentor my everything that you could ever ask for in a friend my dad was to me tell me as a young boy your father took you I guess the club is the Black Hawk Club in in San Francisco you really got to not only see one on one but meet some of the greatest jazz artists really of our time all time Ella Fitzgerald Nat King Cole tell me about his influence on that Johnny Mathis sound and what it would become it formed my personality as far as what people thought about someone like myself who was in the spotlight I was never so amazed at how gracious and kind those people that came called al officials are on Lena Horne of Dizzy Gillespie Miles Davis all of these extraordinary people who were very complex had so many things in their lives that were you know and now I realize that because I'm in that position but they were so kind to me and so generous with the time that I swore if ever I got you know made it bad I was going to be nice to people because it felt so good to be with him and they would share their their little you know day-to-day activities with me my dad was a was very instrumental and bringing me there because they didn't allow children of course in nightclubs but once we got there that will always find a way to sit in the corner and when they were passing by and these people would stop and shake my hand and Ella Fitzgerald saravana and then of course when I started to sing and got to to actually go to a lot of these same places that they performed in and even hook up with them right and I what a joy it's been my whole professional life all I had to do was to keep my focus and I had a lot of people helping me that's hard for people to do though particularly when you're in the public eye and there's so many demands the focus is very difficult because there's so many things that that you're asked to do work just because you can saying doesn't mean that you could do anything else let's go back to 1956 you start recording at Columbia and before long really your second album Mitch Miller begins to shape your career what impact did he have on your sound and on the type of music that you would then embrace not because he was such a a a gentle kind goddess type of person because he was not was not yeah he was a businessman who was in charge of people like Tony Bennett and and Rosemary Clooney and goodness knows how many others Sinatra Sinatra yes Sinatra had just flown the coop yes he got out of there but Mitch was a very famous oboist in the New York Symphony and so he had the classical upbringing and will let you know about it he thought that my voice was okay he says but just singing all the wrong songs because we are a company and we've invested our money and you and we want you to be successful and you won't be successful singing jazz because there's no money in it people don't pay to go see jazz and and all these things that everybody you know eventually told me and he gave me a it gave me a stack of Records about like this and said pick out four or five songs and we'll go in and record them and I did and I picked up it's not for me to say when somebody gets blue Wow a couple of more and we would you pick those out aya said he picked those out for you no later on that was later on haha he owned the publishing rights on some of the songs so he you could see them to me I Ching him you know I don't doesn't matter there were good songs 1958 was a very big year for you and Christmas that was when you you released your first Christmas element that yeah with Percy fate when you listen to that album you think what mom and dad that's why I recorded it they always made Christmas special with no monetary means at all they both worked very hard but they work as domestic workers and it wasn't very much money in that and with seven children and usually at our house we have their people passing through from the south is where my family originated but mom dad or they always made Christmas special actually we take these old stockings that mom had thrown away or something filled them with fruit and candy and what-have-you and hang them over the pretend fireplace it was a real fireplace and that to me was the time when the family was together when I saw my mom and my dad for the first time you know doing something together because we were all over the place they were trying to make a living for seven kids if you can imagine I remember the first time that my mom had ever sat down and listen to me sing and it was almost always at Christmas time when my dad would teach me a song or two so yes Christmas was everything to us and when I had a first a couple of hit records somebody asked me what would you like to sing now mr. Mathis listen up things and Christmas songs my mom and my dad that's greater than I love that what about Percy faith how did that relationship happen because those arrangements and orchestrations are just godless Percy ferret Percy faith was a working artist at Columbia Records a very very important artist I thought of him as because of there was no singing rights I said well he makes arrangements and what-have-you so I asked him to make my arrangements he understood my ignorance and he was very kind to me and he listened to a couple of songs that I had done I was amazed and thrilled he was a taskmaster I used to ask him how do you think I should sing this he said sing it the right way kid oh let's talk for a moment about this voice Johnny it's it's now been 60 years since the country the world first heard your voice the tone the quality of your voice has really not changed how do you maintain that how have you maintained it it was too high the people who sang the men whose hang when I was a kid were Billy Eckstine Perry Como Bing Crosby Bing Crosby my dad worship in class we wanted really sing every song Bing Crosby ever recorded ha ha my sound was too high I was not pleased but I started singing very early and of course I had this little choirboy sound and fortunately I found a teacher who said we don't want to change that all we want to do is make you do it properly so that you can always do it and later on when you're when your voice gets bigger then you you'll be able do that but if we don't learn it now and of course it was a very very difficult time because my voice was changing why do they add and the next day I sold in drugs and I cried I cried I used to sit in the corner and cry when she take her other students you know and I said oh I don't know what's wrong with me and she would smile it's a deer don't you be okay you'll be okay mm-hmm the flexibility though Johnny over time isn't amazing I mean you go into your falsetto then you're dropping into the low base right I mean it really is an astounding thing and there's something I've observed I've watched you as an audience member go on television but certainly live you move your jaw in a certain way and I always thought I mean you really work your jaw moves in unpredictable ways when you're singing I used to think that was to accommodate the tone and the beautiful sounds you were making to sort of move that tone into this place to resonate you know it's not now when I was a child as most poor children are they go to the dentist and if you have a cavity and your tooth they pull it yeah in those days so I had several count cavities and one side of my mouth and they took all my teeth out and so it made my mouth Bob Shaw so I in order for me to open my mouth I had to like that oh my yeah it was a quite traumatic for me to watch myself in the early days and I I said I don't know what to do so as time went on and dentistry caught up to the world I was told that there was some help for me and I found a wonderful dentist who straightened things out for me isn't it interesting though that this something you wouldn't ask for you know something a child didn't desire ended up shaping your tone endless making your sound yes yes and it's what we remember it's what you produce even now is that same sound I mean that's that's got to be a curious thing for you yeah all sorts of wonderful things happen on out of an unfortunate situation right for instance how many people of great you know importance in the world have come from humble beginnings and it makes us all quite humble I think I've always thought the reason that Johnny Mathis and Christmas always fit so well is because you do have that inner spirit of joy of giving of humility that sort of shines through the singing are you aware of that my whole life I wanted to please my parents my parents to me and I can't understand why more people don't celebrate them I mean there's they were the kindest nicest friends companions they were everything to me and I wanted to do something I didn't know what that we found a wonderful lady who taught me were free of charge no charge she had faith in me as someone who would continue my my studies over the years and she had several students like that that was Connie Connie lovely lady over in the East Bay area of San Francisco and I worked with her fortunately from the time I was 13 till about eighteen but that is through the kindness of others I am here today Wow and then of course it has to start with your family that's exactly right tell me about the routine that you at 81 continue you have a very rigorous routine people don't realize singing is not just one thing your whole body everybody tells you that when you're young and you say well ah okay you're singing okay then bother me and then you get older and then things start to be a little bit more difficult fortunately I was a high jumper and a hurdler on the track team there's no other way you can do what you do you don't physically like that unless you exercise all right I got accustomed to exercising the last 20 years I'll be up at 4 o'clock in the morning and do what I do go to the gym for an hour come home feel wonderful after that of course yeah it goes downhill a little bit because I am 80 years old I got it done believe and you do that on show days - yes you're up at 4 o'clock and you're no no no no ok no I mean I'm thinking about you've got a Superman costume yeah wherever you no no I'm really very lazy when it comes to show days yeah I sleep in a lot but you do have to know where is it today the voice is very mysterious one day you sound like a little banker the next day you sound like Mickey Mouse and you go no what are we gonna do and then you start the process Oh trying to sound like Johnny Mathis a lot of singers saying but I'm so aware of the audience that I want them to understand what I'm saying so I have to temper my my voice no I don't want to sound like this you know so s sort of and it all goes back to my dad my dad's sang in a very I call it conversational way in other words he wasn't so so concerned with the singing as he he was with the meaning of the words and and you had to sing of course unfortunately it's through trial and error and a lot of people go through the trial period and never realized the error of it until it's too late I have wonderful people that I've sung with on record or brilliant singers and wonderful and some of them have lost their voice because they they just didn't know how to do it yeah and that's the joy that I get because my teacher was adamant she says you're gonna want to do it all your life whether you can or you can't is it a gift from God do you consider your voice just to give we all yeah yeah oh we all yes yes yes yes yes yes yes and then there's an obligation to protect it and to extend it as far as you can if you're intelligent enough I have somebody smart enough around you to say don't do that yeah and we all need it the way I when when it comes easily to us we tend to take it for granted and and that's that's when the danger starts when you go out and I've seen this during Christmas concert you'll sing a few Christmas songs and then you'll drop in at maybe the third or fourth song in the set chances are why there and do you still feel what the audience is feeling you could the air literally expands in the room when you hear those first chords of chances are and when you join in what you try to do is to keep their attention at all costs the first thing that you do when you go onstage that I do is make sure that you you give them the best quality that you have vocally mm-hmm so that they'll listen to anything for a while right but then they get nervous huh don't you hate when that happens ever sing sir yeah it's my pony to say [Music] you always [Music] over here for the moment I can hold and press your lips to my Andrey as far as I can see this is heavy speaking just for me it's hard to share perhaps the glove with every passing day [Music] we may never meet again the thing it's not for me to say [Music] schnauzers are when mama when you come into view chances are you think that I'm in love with you just because my compose you saw the swimmers the moment that your lips meet my changes are you think my heart your Valentine in the magic of moonlight when I sign hold me posted chances are you be need the skies to fill the skies I guess you feel you'll always be the one and only one for me if you think you could what changes are your chances are Oh when you sing them and you seem chances are you're aware of the power that you and that song have with that audience not really what I most the things that I am concerned about is trying to sing it again meaningfully for the 11 million times and not you know and not trivialize and that is the hard part it is very very difficult to do because I can't sing the last high part of chances are for instance so I only sing one course of it but I go from chances on into it's not for me to say AHA and then I'll do as much of that as I can there's a sense in ruining a performance by trying to do something that you can't do right I mean you're never gonna be able to third you did it once right no right let him play the record what do you want the Johnny Mathis legacy to be oh my goodness well you know I was thinking about something like that not specifically that but how soon we forget all these great great people who come our way and it's just the way people are and so there's nothing to do about it the thing to do is to be gracious and grateful for what you have do it for as long as you can move on maybe and do something else but how do you want to be remembered ha you've had such a long incredible career Johnny and it continues you're still recording mmm lodges is a process I'm sure I did some awful things when I was a kid I hope nobody remembers that and when you think about people who sing the millions and millions of people that even I listen to to this day may be nice to be connected with that group but mostly I hope that my brother let's just think a little bit more about what our parents did for us so what I do now which is very strange for me because I was always a kid I even think of myself now the same way that I was when I'm the kid hmm it's kind of strange for me to have all this responsibility now of being in the place of a parent to my other brothers and sisters who are still alive and yet that's what I get the most joy out of now is what would dad do well mom do you know if they were capable sure sure yeah so I spent time doing that tell me what's next fortunately I mean I'm the luckiest man in the world one thing to be able to do something well but to be able to to keep everything in place or I see a recording contract unbelievable because the music changes so often and and they're in the business of selling records so I am you know grateful for what I had but I'm also grateful for what I have because I have these wonderful memories once in a while I'll sit down and listen to some of my recordings again ah I did that I did that I can't believe and I wonder what was the catalyst that made me do that mm-hmm who was in my life at the time that made me understand what I was doing and to make a beautiful recording like that and what wonderful recordings he's made 80 studio albums in all and he's not done yet Johnny Mathis is complete Christmas CD is in stores as is his incredible latest Christmas album sending you a little Christmas he is still on the road and Johnny tells me he's recording a new album with Kenny babyface Edmonds by the way he'll be back next week for the Christmas show and we might sing something together [Music] ah

Channel: EWTN

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Id: kjwNSBPtkeI

Length: 27min 46sec (1666 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 16 2016