![]() ![]() Sang with a jazz group while in college vocal soloist and concert performer, 1955 - recording artist, 1956. Education: Attended San Francisco State College. son of Clem (a chauffer and handyman) and Mildred (a domestic) Mathis. He set a college record for the high jump, and was invited to try out for the 1956 Olympic For the Record …įull name, John Royce Mathis born September 30, 1935, in San Francisco, Calif. ![]() Mathis entered San Francisco State College with the intention of becoming an English teacher, but his continued athletic achievements led him to contemplate teaching physical education or coaching track. He also excelled in athletics, winning six letters for his participation in various sports, including basketball, hurdling, and high jumping. Mathis was the first black child ever elected student body president of San Francisco ’s Roosevelt Junior High School, and when he graduated to George Washington High School he served as the treasurer of his class. He was a good student with leadership quality. The gesture was a helpful one because the Mathis family could not afford to pay for them the lessons, primarily in classical and opera singing, continued for six years.īut music was not Mathis ’s only option for success. #The best days of my life johnny mathis free#The year before, he had impressed Oakland, California, music teacher Connie Cox so much that she offered him free voice lessons. The young Mathis also sang in church, and won a local amateur talent contest when he was fourteen. Clem bought Johnny a second-hand piano when he was eight, and taught him vaudeville routines for performance within the family. Windeler of People magazine, was quick to recognize and encourage his fourth child ’s talent. His father, Clem, a former Texas vaudeville performer who Mathis calls “my biggest hero, the reason I started to sing, ” according to R. Though he was born September 30, 1935, into a poor black family in San Francisco, California, Mathis ’s childhood and adolescence predicted his later success. ” Despite Mathis ’s longevity on the charts, however, he did not have a number one single until his 1978 duet with Deniece Williams, “Too Much, Too Little, Too Late. As reviewer Sidney Fields put it in the New York Mirror: “His voice has incredible range he improvises on a theme in any tempo and mood with great originality and he can move from a tender ballad to swing, to rhythm and blues, and even vehemence. Perhaps because of the fact that much of his music celebrates the ideals of romantic love, Mathis is especially well-received by female listeners, but he has garnered critical acclaim as well. Rising to the peak of his reputation during the late 1950s and early 1960s, Mathis resisted the rock and roll phenomenon that swept the nation in those years and established a unique popularity for himself in the musical genre of easy listening. His recordings have been represented on the music charts for longer than any except those of famous crooner Frank Sinatra, and he has earned at least eight gold albums. Johnny Mathis is one of the most successful singers of ballads in the American music world. ![]()
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