But you can find them, songs that are popular and are pertinent to an audience.” Kids are the ones who buy the records, their likes and dislikes change all the time. “Fortunately, I found a lot of those songs.
“Mostly I was concerned with popular songs, songs that would be popular today, tomorrow and the next day,” he said. Rather, he became a master of often romantic pop. Mathis, then and now, wasn’t singing rock ‘n’ roll, soul or R&B. They didn’t have to pay me anything, so why not?” “Years and years ago, all by myself, I sang in these tiny, tiny situations,” he said. But he wasn’t always playing plush theaters. Mathis has consistently toured over the last 60 years. Even though the hierarchy of the company has changes, I’ve been able to keep my head above water as far as sales are concerned. “This is 60 years and more I’ve been with Columbia Records. “I got with a copacetic, sympathetic record company, Columbia Records,” he said. Olympic team and traveled to New York where he made his first album in 1956, beginning what is now the longest relationship between Columbia and any of its artists. So Mathis gave up his chance to be a high jumper on 1956 U.S. In 1955, she convinced the A&R head of Columbia Records jazz division to hear Mathis - who immediately wanted to sign him. Musical fate, however, intervened when a fellow student brought Mathis to the Black Hawk nightclub where, after hearing him, the club owner, Helen Noga, wanted to manage the young singer. While there, he set a high jump record of 6 feet 5½ inches and shared headlines with his SFSC high jumper, Bill Russell, who, of course, went on to be an NBA legend. In fact, athletics appeared to be at the heart of Mathis’ future when he enrolled at San Francisco State College (now San Francisco State University) in 1954 with the intention of being an English and physical education teacher. That was always the catalyst for my singing.” Everything I did then had to do with school, even the music. My mom and dad raised seven kids on domestics’ wages. It was just something that kids did when they didn’t have any money. I was a high jumper and a hurdler,” Mathis said. While he was studying voice, Mathis was also a star athlete at San Francisco’s George Washington High School. She thought maybe I had something I could make a career of.” “Along with her paid students, she had about four other people she was teaching for free. “She was quite a wonderful singer herself,’ Mathis said. Five years later, Clem took Johnny to meet Connie Cox, an opera singer who taught voice lessons, primarily to well-off youngsters. He’s the reason I’m a singer.”Ĭlem Mathis taught young John Royce to sing his first song, “My Blue Heaven,” and bought him an old $25 piano when the boy was 8. I’ve been singing since I was a little kid. “I love the opportunity to sing in front of people,” Mathis said. I think it’s a bit of luck and, when I started, my voice teacher taught me some things and said ‘you do this well and you’ll be able to do this for the rest of your life.’” “Over the years, I’ve admired so many singers along the way and so many of them now don’t sing or can’t sing.
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