Chart entered : 23 May 1958
Chart peak : 27
Number of hits : 15
Given the span of his active career I would have thought Johnny had racked up a few more hits but there is a 12 year barren spell in the middle of his run.
Johnny was born in Texas in 1935 but the family moved to San Francisco shortly afterwards. His musical talent was recognised early on and encouraged by his father . From 13 he had professional voice training in return for doing odd jobs around the tutor's home. He started performing at night clubs. At the same time he was excelling at athletics and in 1956 he was faced with the choice of going to the Olympic trials or his first recording session. He chose the latter.
At first he was a primarily a jazz singer ; his first album in that vein in 1956 "Johnny Mathis" was a sluggish seller. His fortunes changed when Mitch Miller took over the reins as his producer and pushed him down the Nat King Cole route of lushly orchestrated ballads. Johnny started working with the likes of Ray Conniff and Ray Ellis. In the States the payoff was immediate with the irresistible "Wonderful Wonderful" making the Top 20. Two singles down the line "Chances Are" ( a less appealing cocktail jazz ballad ) got to number one. Having cracked the big time Johnny and Mitch started pushing the envelope with slightly darker, more ambitious material like "All The Time" and the eerie "No Love" and the chart positions suffered a little for it.
Which makes "Teacher, Teacher" all the more disappointing, an unconvincing move into Sinatra big band territory. The song written by the Stilman-Allen partnership isn't particularly strong, Johnny is competent rather than comfortable in the style and Ellis's orchestration is horribly shrill. It seems strange that such a mis-step should be the one that first cracked Blighty but these things happen.
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