{"id":353214,"date":"2025-12-18T12:14:05","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T12:14:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/353214\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T12:14:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T12:14:05","slug":"some-music-from-johnny-mathis-why-evolution-is-true","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/353214\/","title":{"rendered":"Some music from Johnny Mathis \u2013 Why Evolution Is True"},"content":{"rendered":"

Johnny Mathis<\/a>, one of the two or three greatest male pop singers of our era, turns ninety this year, and he\u2019s still with us. I heard a song of his the other night, and decided to post my three favorite songs he recorded. He didn\u2019t write any of them, but it\u2019s the voice that really counts here. Nobody else has a voice that sounds as rich and mellow as his.<\/p>\n

After the three below, I added one of my favorite Christmas songs, of which Mathis does the best cover.\u00a0 Note, though, that for the first three I\u2019ve put up videos of the live versions though his recorded versions are a bit better (I\u2019ve added links to those).<\/p>\n

First, \u201cA certain smile<\/a>\u201c, which I learned actually came from a movie. The Wikipedia article about the song says this:<\/p>\n

\u201cA Certain Smile\u201d is a popular song that was written by\u00a0Sammy Fain<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Paul Francis Webster<\/a>\u00a0for the 1958 film\u00a0of the same name<\/a>.\u00a0Johnny Mathis<\/a>\u00a0performed the song in the film, and his recording reached the top 20 on the record charts in the US and the top five in the UK. The songwriters were nominated for the\u00a0Academy Award for Best Original Song<\/a>\u00a0in 1959.<\/p>\n

The recorded version is here<\/a>, and it\u2019s terrific. Be sure to listen for the high note accompanying the last use of \u201ccertain.\u201d One thing I like about Mathis\u2019s recordings is that he embellishes the endings with lovely vocal tricks.<\/p>\n

Stop this video after the first song, as it continues into a lesser song.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

One of Mathis\u2019s most popular recordings was \u201cMisty<\/a>\u201c, which, according to Wikipedia, is<\/p>\n

\u201c. . . a jazz standard<\/a>\u00a0written and originally recorded in 1954 by pianist\u00a0Erroll Garner<\/a>. It appeared on\u00a0Johnny Mathis\u2019 1959 album\u00a0Heavenly<\/a>, and this recording reached number 12 on the\u00a0U.S. Pop Singles\u00a0chart later that year. It has since become one of Mathis\u2019\u00a0signature songs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The recorded version is here<\/a>, with an absolutely stunning bit when Mathis\u2019s voice blends with (and is indistiguishable from) the oboe\u2014at 2:40.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not for me to say<\/a>\u201d (recorded version here<\/a>), was also in a movie:<\/p>\n

\u201c. . . . a 1957 popular<\/a>\u00a0song<\/a>\u00a0with music by\u00a0Robert Allen<\/a>\u00a0and lyrics by\u00a0Al Stillman<\/a>. American singer\u00a0Johnny Mathis\u00a0recorded the song and later performed it in the\u00a01957\u00a0movie\u00a0Lizzie<\/a>. His recording reached the top 10 on the US pop charts.<\/p>\n

The ending hook here is the way Mathis sings the word \u201cwe\u201d in the final \u201cwe will never meet again\u201d (3:10 in the live version, 2:33 in the recorded version).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Finally, I decided to throw in a holiday song, my favorite: Do you hear what I hear?. <\/a>I didn\u2019t know this song was so recent, nor written as a plea for peace:<\/p>\n

\u201cDo You Hear What I Hear?\u201d is a song written in October 1962, with lyrics by\u00a0No\u00ebl Regney<\/a>\u00a0and music by\u00a0Gloria Shayne<\/a>.\u00a0The pair, married at the time, wrote it as a plea for peace during the\u00a0Cuban Missile Crisis<\/a>.\u00a0Regney had been invited by a record producer to write a Christmas song, but he was hesitant due to the commercialism of Christmas.\u00a0It has sold tens of millions of copies and has been covered by hundreds of artists.<\/p>\n

Robert Goulet is often said to have done the best version, but I think Mathis\u2019s, below, is far better. I have only the recorded version, and the final hook is the modulated phrases, \u201cHe will bring us goodness and light\u201d at the end.<\/p>\n

My other favorite Christmas song is \u201cMerry Christmas, Darling<\/a>,\u201d by the Carpenters.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Johnny Mathis, one of the two or three greatest male pop singers of our era, turns ninety this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353215,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341],"class_list":{"0":"post-353214","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}