Seventeen months after the original date, Johnny Mathis is coming back to town on Aug. 28.
And 17 months isn’t a long time in the grand scheme of Mathis’ career, who signed with his current label, Columbia Records, in 1956.
The crooner’s Cincinnati date in March of last year was canceled due to the pandemic. This rescheduled show is the first full-capacity event at the Aronoff Center’s Procter & Gamble Hall since the March 2020 shutdown.
The following interview took place prior to last year’s canceled show.
Question: Is “Chances Are” is your signature, or do you think it’s “Misty,” or “It’s Not for Me to Say?”
Answer: Yeah, any one of those. I was trying to figure out when I recorded some of that stuff. And it happened very early when I was like 19, 20 years old.
Q: Do you wish your signature song had been something else, maybe a single that didn’t quite take off like you thought it should?
A: That’s why the other side of records were made. When I was a kid, the record company gave me songs that they wanted me to record. And they were all good songs, but I also had my own little ideas about what I wanted to sing, and they ended up on the other side of the record, of course. And I don’t think any of them had any kind of impact like the ones that record company wanted me to sing. Maybe one. I think it was called “When Sunny Gets Blue.” That’s about it.
Q: Do you get tired of singing your signatures?
A: Not at all. They seemed to fit my voice at the time, and all of it turned out very, very well. I recorded those songs when I was 18 years old, and I’m 84 (now 85), and I can still sing them.
Q: Are you still signed to Columbia Records?
A: Yes.
Q: Are there any executives working at Columbia with whom you have a longtime association? Or is it all new people, and do they know how to handle your career?
A: All of my friends were the hierarchy of the company at the time, but they’re all gone, so I don’t have any association at all with the company. The only association is that they release my recordings. But it’s up to me to figure out what will sell, music-wise. But realistically, I haven’t recorded any music in about four or five years. They used to call me on the phone and say, “Mr. Mathis, we’d like you to record a Broadway song from ‘My Fair Lady,’” or what have you, but that doesn’t exist anymore.
Q: What sort of satisfaction do you get from working the road that you can’t find anywhere else?
A: The attendance is just amazing. I guess they love the songs, and they remember them. But then I have to realize that I haven’t stopped performing since I was 18, 19 years old.
Q: Do you feel any sort of obligation to keep alive that era of vocal music associated with singers like Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra?
A: I do kind of wonder whether the general public is aware of that kind of music, because that’s not what I hear on the radio, and most of it was really quite good. But there’s so many things in my life that have come and gone, that I’m a little puzzled when I hear certain kinds of music that kids are listening to. Some of it’s OK. Things change. That’s what popular music is about. Popular music of the day.
If you go What: Johnny Mathis
When: 8 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 28
Where: Aronoff Center, 650 Walnut St., Downtown; 513-621-2787
Tickets: $48.75-$128.75
