PRESENTS

Welcome to the Grapevine News. This section of the Mathis Chronicles contains my views about anything I find or am sent about Johnny Mathis on the Internet and elsewhere, that had been overlooked by the "official" sites. Occasionally, I report on things not directly related to Mathis but have a connection, may even make up a question to ask myself and try to answer. Readers are welcome to share their experiences here also. So enjoy and thanks for coming.

VOL. 2 NO. 5 - MARCH 5, 2003

TO SPEAK OF RESPECT: It was a secret to nobody that the Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award winners, outside of Simon and Garfunkel, got a pretty shabby half-assed tribute last week during the show. No less than rapper Busta Rhymes, introduced our Mathis' segment. A rapper?! With some cheesy spiel about how some of us wouldn't be here if not for a Johnny Mathis song?! Who then promptly got his SUV all shot up afterwards? (Probably unrelated events, but still!) In my opinion, not just Mathis, but all of them got the shaft, and I personally feel it was a blatant lack of respect.

I really like the idea one of my readers suggested. While she suggested that they hold two telecasts, one for adults and one for everyone else (!), I myself wouldn't go that far, but I do feel she's onto something.

Here's what I think would work, if they were willing to give it a try. Now, I'm a big fan of the Tony Awards show. My friend from the theatre tells me that in that community, nobody is left out, everybody is acknowledged from the best actor to the lighting man. This, I'm told, is why PBS does a telecast of its own before the "real" telecast by the network show. The couple of hours before are covered by PBS so people can see the lighting man, the set designer, the sound man, etc. get their props.

Compare this to the Grammy Awards show. CBS gives them almost four hours everytime, and itıs obvious they still don't have time to give all but the big acts a decent amount of respect, most of which is based on record sales rather than an actual contribution to music history.

I think PBS needs to take over the first part of the Grammy show! The PBS show can be on Saturday night, and the network show can cater to their more youthful audience on Sunday night. This way, all the people the network telecast doesn't want to publicly acknowledge can get their respect during the Saturday show. PBS does an excellent job with the Tony "pre-show", and I think they'd do a respectable job with the many categories that network TV doesn't have time for. And, it'd be right up their alley, too, with all the classical and jazz categories that get ignored in favor of (gasp) rap music and the other more "popular" categories. Now, whom to propose that idea to?

Well, anyway, I think it's just too bad about Mathis and his award. I had already gotten the heads up that Mathis wasn't going to be in New York at all, so I knew I wouldn't be seeing him being sung to in tribute. (I had a feeling that Mathis had expected such a tribute, just based on what he told Katie Couric on The Today Show back in December. I believe he mentioned he'd enjoy getting serenaded by someone else for a change. To think of how disappointed he must have been when he found out the truth makes my blood pressure rise.) I even hear he didn't even show for the actual award ceremony. If it wasn't due to any health relapse (please, cancer, stay away), I don't blame him one iota. He deserved a hell of a lot more than he got. That piece of paper, that little Gramophone be damned.

CHANCES ARE, cont'd: My friend Lindaura Raposo Del Carlo found this site for me which supposedly will take foreign payment through credit card (meaning outside Brazil!) to buy the Chances Are DVD. Thanks Lindaura! Now, I don't know enough about DVDs to know whether they'll play on a non-Brazilian machine, or if they have separate systems like video tapes do, but I'm supplying the link to Revista DVD Total, and you can find out for yourselves!

LOVE SONGS, THE SEQUEL: Legacy Recordings, a subsidiary of Sony Music and the keeper of all the label's older music, seems to have released a compilation (big surprise) of more of Johnny's older recordings. Catering to the Valentine's Day buyers, it's called Love Songs, and it's not to be confused with the 1988 compilation of the same name. I thought it wasn't being sold here in the US by any of my favorite sources, hence the link to Amazon Canada. But, I've found it at Tower.com as well!

I guess I should be excited because I see songs a couple of unknown songs, along with a couple from my favorite album, such as "And I Love You So" and "You Are The Sunshine of My Life" from Killing Me Softly with Her Song, but you know I'm not one to settle, especially not for the price of another CD. I want the real deal, baby, uh huh. Release KMSWHS in its own right! And I think they'd have been better off to release the song, "Two Tickets and a Candy Heart", a single for Mathis many moons ago, for their Valentine's compilation, but then I think all their imagination is in their...well, I won't go there.

TOUR BUS: The bus stops next in Mashantucket, Connecticut. Visit See Mathis Live! for details. New dates for 2004 added! Yay!

©2003 Iris Gross Georg. All rights reserved.

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