Alex Henderson

Johnny Mathis
You Light Up My Life/Mathis Magic

Throughout his long career, Johnny Mathis has had a reputation for being a romantic pop singer. But along the way, Mathis has turned to different areas of popular music for inspiration. The Mathis who emerged in the late 1950s with major hits like “Chances Are,” “It’s Not For Me to Say” and “Misty” (the Erroll Garner gem) was a jazz-influenced traditional pop crooner whose direct or indirect influences included Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Scott and other icons of the World War II Generation. But Mathis broadened his repertoire considerably in the 1970s, recording an abundance of adult contemporary, soft rock and pop-soul songs while continuing to perform the great Tin Pan Alley standards of the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. And Mathis’ desire to evolve with the times is evident on 1978’s You Light Up My Life and 1979’s Mathis Magic, both of which were originally released on LP by Columbia Records and are reissued back to back on this 20-track CD.

Both albums were produced by Jack Gold and boast arrangements by Gene Page, who is fondly remembered for his work with Barry White, Elton John and many other stars of the 1970s. And on both albums, Mathis emphasizes adult contemporary but doesn’t abandon Tin Pan Alley standards. You Light Up My Life finds Mathis performing two Bee Gees songs (“Emotion”—a male/female vocal duet with Deniece Williams—and “How Deep Is Your Love”) as well as Charlie Smalls’ “If You Believe” (from the musical The Wiz) and Hal David’s “It Was Almost Like a Song” (made famous by country-pop star Ronnie Milsap in 1977). The title track of You Light Up My Life, written by Joe Brooks, was a major hit for adult contemporary star Debby Boone in 1977, but the album moves into Tin Pan Alley territory with Mathis’ performance of the Richard Rodgers/Lorenz Hart standard “Where or When.”

Similarly, Mathis Magic acknowledges Tin Pan Alley with recordings of Cole Porter’s “Night and Day” and Harold Arlen’s “That Old Black Magic,” but adult contemporary prevails on ballads that include “You Saved My Life” (a duet with the late British theatrical star Stephanie Lawrence), Ben Peters’ “Heart, Soul, Body and Mind” and Steve Gibb’s “She Believes in Me” (a smash hit for country-pop star Kenny Rogers in 1979). Another highlight of Mathis Magic is Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind,” which has become as much of an anthem for the Big Apple as Rodgers & Hart’s “Manhattan,” Harry Warren’s “Lullaby of Broadway” or the Sinatra-associated “New York, New York.”

You Light Up My Life is best known for the melancholy ballad “Too Much, Too Little, Too Late,” a duet with Deniece Williams that soared to #1 on three singles charts in Billboard in the United States (R&B, adult contemporary and the Billboard Hot 100) and was also a #3 pop smash in the UK. “Too Much, Too Little, Too Late” (written by Nat Kipner and John Vallins) was so successful in early 1978 that Mathis and Williams ended up recording an entire album of duets: That’s What Friends Are For, released by Columbia later that year.

Another person who contributed to the success of You Light Up My Life was engineer Tom Perry, who Gold hired at the recommendation of Joe Wissert (a well known producer Perry had worked with on Boz Scaggs’ “Lowdown,” Helen Reddy’s “Angie Baby” and other 1970s hits). Interviewed on December 3, 2014, Perry remembered that Gold needed Perry to give “Too Much, Too Little, Too Late” a new, fresh mix that would appeal to late 1970s tastes.

“Jack had produced and mixed ‘Too Much, Too Little, Too Late’ in 1977—and he thought he had a hit,’” Perry recalls. “But people at Columbia were not responding very well to the project. So Jack played it for Joe Wissert, who was also a staff producer at Columbia—I had worked with Joe on Boz Scaggs’ Silk Degrees album and his follow-up album, Down Two, Then Left. And Joe told Jack, ‘You know, it could be a hit. But you really need to get a more modern sound on it. You should call Tom Perry and remix that single, and you might have something.’ So I got a call from Jack, who I had never met—and I remixed ‘Too Much, Too Little, Too Late.’ Jack seemed happy with it and took it back to Columbia and started playing it for other people, and they thought, ‘Wow, this is a hit.’ So Jack asked me to mix the rest of the album. Columbia put out ‘Too Much, Too Little, Too Late’ as a single, and it went to #1.”

Page’s skillful arranging serves Mathis well on both You Light Up My Life and Mathis Magic. Interviewed on November 24, 2014, Michael Boddicker—who plays synthesizer on two of the songs on Mathis Magic, “Night and Day” and Joe & Noel Sherman’s “To the Ends of the Earth”—praised Gold for appreciating Page’s skills as an arranger. “Jack Gold was a very powerful man at Columbia,” Boddicker, now 61, recalls. “I was blessed to have worked with him. Jack let Gene do what Gene did. Jack produced the records for Johnny Mathis, but he let the arranger, Gene Page, take care of Gene Page’s job. And that was a wonderful thing to witness.”

Boddicker continued: “I could talk about Gene Page all day long. He was awesome. He was an incredibly gifted arranger, an incredibly gifted organizer, and an incredibly gifted leader. Gene could write for each instrument as though he were a virtuoso on each. I have nothing but good stuff to say about Gene Page.”

Page, sadly, was only 58 when he died in 1998. And Gold, at 71, passed away in 1992 after a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease. But Mathis is now 79 and is still busy performing.

Mathis was already in his forties when You Light Up My Life and Mathis Magic were recorded, and as this reissue demonstrates, changing with the times was not a problem for the versatile singer.     

—Alex Henderson, December 2014

Alex Henderson’s work has appeared in Billboard, Spin, Salon.com, Creem, The L.A. Weekly, AlterNet, JazzTimes, Jazziz, Cash Box, HITS, CD Review, Skin Two, Black Beat, The Pasadena Weekly, Black Radio Exclusive (BRE), Music Connection, The New York City Jazz Record, Jazz Inside Magazine and many other well-known publications. Henderson (alexvhenderson.com) also contributed several thousand CD reviews to the popular Allmusic.com website and The All Music Guide’s series of music reference books.