Johnny Mathis at Flagstar at Westbury Music Fair

John Royce Mathis is an American popular music singer who was born on September 30, 1935. While he began his career with conventional music singles, he quickly rose to fame as an album performer, with 73 of his albums reaching the Billboard charts and several dozen of them going gold or platinum. In addition to being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for three recordings, he was given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003.

Despite being referred to as a romantic singer, Mathis's discography includes traditional pop, Latin American, soul, rhythm and blues, show tunes, Tin Pan Alley, soft rock, blues, country music, and even a few disco songs for his 1979 album Mathis Magic.

Mathis is the third-best-selling artist of the 20th century, having sold 360 million records worldwide. In addition, he has made seven Christmas music albums. He listed Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, and Lena Horne as among of his musical influences in a 1968 interview.

The discovery of his talent was quite simple. Mathis was singing one Sunday afternoon in a jam session with his friend’s jazz sextet at a club in San Francisco. Helen Noga, the club’s co-founder noticed his singing voice, and she then became his manager.

The recording artists who have been with Columbia Records the longest are Mathis, Bob Dylan, Barbra Streisand, Tony Bennett, Billy Joel, and Bruce Springsteen. Mathis has been with Columbia Records from 1956 to 1963 and from 1968 to the present, with the exception of a four-year hiatus to record for Mercury Records in the mid-1960s. (Bennett recorded for Verve and his own Improv label from 1972 until 1986, when he returned to Columbia; Joel has been with the company since his 1973 album "Piano Man;" Streisand and Springsteen have never left.) Dylan spent a few years with Asylum Records before re-signing with Columbia.

Apart from Mathis, only three other singers have accomplished the feat of having five of their albums simultaneously chart at number one on the Billboard charts: Frank Sinatra, Barry Manilow, and (posthumously) Prince. Mathis has 200 singles to his credit and 71 tracks that have peaked globally.