With an instantly recognizable mellow, romantic, jazz sound accompanied by nostalgic lyrics, this Grammy Award winning singer songwriter has had a career in the industry that has spanned six decades. During which time he has received accolades from every walk of life but most noticeably from Tonight Show host Johnny Carson, who, in his time heard over 2000 singers on his show but went on to say, "Johnny Mathis is the best ballad singer in the world."

Johnny Mathis was born John Royce Mathis on September 30^th 1935 as the fourth of seven children, in Gilmer, Texas. His parents, Clem and Mildred moved the family to San Francisco when Johnny was still young, at which time his father worked in vaudeville and encouraged the innate talent he recognized in his son by buying him a piano and teaching him to play and to dance.

Johnny first performed at his local church and at his school until he was 13 years old, when he was introduced to a voice coach who trained him in scales, classic and operatic skills.

While at school Johnny excelled not only in music but as an athlete, beating the existing high jump record in 1954 by jumping 6ft 5 inches. In the same year Mathis enrolled in San Francisco State University and pursed a course aimed at teaching English and physical education.

But in 1955, after acquiring a manager, Mathis landed a job singing at weekends in a club until he was spotted by jazz producer, George Avakian and was signed to Columbia Records. Being torn between trying out for the Olympics and keeping an appointment in New York to make his first recording, Mathis chose New York.

With the recording of "Wonderful! Wonderful!" and "It's Not For Me To Say" in 1956 Mathis signed to MGM to sing the latter song in the 1957 film Lizzie, and shortly afterwards he made his second film appearance for 20th Century Fox singing the title song in the movie, A Certain Smile. He had small acting roles in both movies as a bar singer. With the appearance in 2 successful movies Mathis was instantly exposed to a wider audience and that soon brought him an appearance on the very popular Ed Sullivan Show in 1957. This helped to seal his stardom when critics called him the velvet voice.

The 1960’s saw the British Invasion by The Beatles bringing their own brand of music to the record buying public of America and reducing the popularity of music for the adult contemporary audience.

Mathis consistently charted in the 1970‘s, but hit singles were rare for him as most of his top ten recordings had occurred in 1957. So when he chose to focus instead on the album market, like Frank Sinatra, who was his main rival during the late 1950s, Mathis’ move more towards soft rock during the 1970s, saw him with his second number one single, "Too Much, Too Little, Too Late," in 1978. He went on to record the single as a duet with Deniece Williams. The success of the single prompted Mathis to begin recording duets with a variety of partners including Dionne Warwick, Natalie Cole and Gladys Knight. During the course of his career Mathis received three Grammy awards for his musical offerings.

Mathis appeared on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno in March 2007 where he performed the classic, with which he has become synonymous, "Shadow of Your Smile".

After being interviewed by US Magazine in the 1980’s, when he revealed his homosexuality, Mathis kept quiet on the subject for the next 20 years and only mentioned it briefly in an interview in 2006, where he stated his silence over the years had been due to death threats at the time of the original 1982 article.

In the 1950’s Mathis purchased a mansion in the Hollywood Hills, that was originally built by billionaire Howard Hughes, and he still maintains it as his residence.

ABB