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. 3 NO. 6 - JUNE 21, 2004

BROTHER RAY, PT. 2: Well, the reports I mentioned in the last volume were true, weren't they? Summer has started on a very sad note, indeed.

The voice of Ray Charles, as I was telling a dear friend, was one of the earliest voices I remember outside of my family. How well I remember Mother's red Ray Charles country album that she played to death on the old portable turntable we used to have. The death of Ray Charles is like the death of a member of my family, and it has made me sick at heart; I can't believe he's not going to be around anymore.

But I agree with a concept that CBS' Bill Flanagan came up with during his CBS Sunday Morning tribute. Ray Charles is like the musical Abraham. He has influenced, in one way or another, just about every genre of music that people today listen to. As such, his musical "children" continue to be fruitful and multiply. It is in this way that the soul of "Brother Ray", the "Genius of Soul", will live on.

NPR has been kind enough to cover the entire two-hour service for Ray Charles. Well, it's actually part documentary, part funeral, and very well done. They are posting this link to it until June 26, so please bear in mind that the link will be broken after this date. It's truly the next best thing to being there, which I would have been if I could (and if I had been invited to the invitation-only service).

Funerals are such peculiar affairs that I'm surprised there hasn't been more written on them. I admit to only having seen White funerals on TV, and they seem to be very different events from the kind I have always gone to. It could, of course, depend on the religion, but the funerals I've been to, Black funerals, including that of my own mother, are not somber, depressing events but joyous celebrations of the homegoing of your loved one, so much so that it's almost a relief when it's overwith. However, that's not to say, if you are one of the bereaved, that you don't do your share of crying, still. I say all this only because the NPR announcer Renee Montagne and her colleagues seemed to me somewhat mystified by the joyous turn the services took, especially after Wynton Marsalis played his New Orleans-style march. The guest commentator, singer Dee Dee Bridgewater, provided valuable insight, in my opinion, on the particulars of how funerals are conducted in the Black culture.

If you'll use your RealPlayer, and fast forward over to about 47 minute mark of the second hour, you'll get to the part where the pastor is talking to Johnny Mathis and about their duet together, and you'll hear their duet in its entirety. The pastor of the First AME Church where the services were held had asked Mathis and conductor Victor Vanacore to stand while they opened the casket and played "Somewhere Over The Rainbow".

An interesting factoid I discovered while doing my research for this edition: Vanacore was musical director for Mathis' world tour for a couple years back in the 70s. (That's the position currently held by John Scott Lavender.) Before that he was with the Jackson Five in the same role, and was Ray Charles' musical director of late, and was the arranger and conductor for the Genius Loves Company duet album. By now, you realize this is the title of the last Ray Charles studio album, to be released in the fall, and on which the Mathis/Charles duet is featured. You wonder how in the world Ray Charles and Johnny Mathis would have ever gotten together? Now you know! (It is this writer's opinion that this CD will ship platinum! And, if "Rainbow" is released as a single off of it, it is also this writer's opinion that it may mean a Grammy for Ray Charles, Johnny Mathis, and whoever wrote the song.)

I myself had my doubts about the song, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"...somehow, I couldn't get Oklahoma native Sam Harris' caterwauling out of my mind. But after hearing the song at the services...well. It's one of the most beautiful versions ever produced. Ray Charles recorded the song himself back in the seventies, but I agree with Renee Montagne that it couldn't have found a more fitting interpreter than Johnny Mathis. It made me proud that this song, of all that were on that album-to-be, was spotlighted at the services. Doing so will fix that melody in the minds of all who attended. And what an honor to be one of the last people, if not THE last person, to ever record with the great Ray Charles! The NPR announcers said Mathis was beaming the whole time the song was playing. I can't blame him one bit...he has every right to be proud of such an honor. But, as indicated in this USA Today article, Mathis has also felt the loss of this friend and icon as keenly as the rest of us who loved Ray Charles did.

Ray Charles belongs to the ages now. Thank you, Brother Ray, for sharing your gifts with us for so long, and for choosing Johnny Mathis to help you deliver one of your last gifts to the world. We won't stop loving you.

THAT OTHER FUNERAL:You might say it's kind of been a rough week or two for Johnny Mathis in terms of him losing his friends. It was no surprise that he was at the funeral of long-dead President Reagan, since he and the Reagans were inexplicably quite good friends. And as I was watching the services on ABC Friday, June 11, there he was, walking around at the Reagan Library, presumably going to his seat. I nodded when I saw him...I knew he'd be there for Nancy, even though his may well have been the only Black face at that funeral, for sure. And I sat through that whole damn thing to see if they'd get another shot of him paying respects at the casket. No such luck. Anyway, Here's an AP Photo of Johnny Mathis at Reagan's funeral.

Lord knows, I felt Reagan was no friend of mine; I hated him as much as I loved Ray Charles. I hated Ronald Reagan with every fiber of my being when I was a young unemployed twenty-something and he was in office. Later, when he got feeble, I just felt sorry for him; I felt the Lord had His way of doling out a proper come-uppance in His own way. These days I realize that the Father doesn't quite work in such a cut-and-dried fashion, but at the time it was certainly a satisfying explanation of the rapid deterioration of such a physically strong man, given that so few Blacks come down with Alzheimer's.

I've been reading the aftermath of the Reagan death with bemusement. He's lived a long life of contradictions. He's been described as "the great communicator" as well as "the great compromiser". He's "a man of great sympathy but little empathy" who couldn't believe his budget cuts were actually hurting people. I read about the time a young "Dutch" Reagan took two black teammates home with him because they couldn't stay at a hotel with the rest of the team, then I read about this "state's rights" advocate's support of the apartheid regime in South Africa, which Congress apparently had to override. I read where Reagan had called Dr. King a Communist, and only grudgingly made King's birthday into a national holiday. Nobody mourning his death last week seemed to remember the Iran/contra affair which would have sent lesser people to rot in jail for the rest of their lives. And I personally believe it was Reagan that caused the AIDS virus to go out of control, due to his six years of inexplicable apathy. Yes, he had Black conservative Colin Powell as his national security advisor, the same job Condoleezza Rice has now under Bush II. But that was no real surprise; conservatives of all colors just seem to love Ronald Reagan. But his appointments just don't make right all the wrongs for liberals and moderates like me. And it wasn't the Black vote that put him into office twice, that's for damn sure.

On the other hand, if Johnny Mathis liked him so much, then I have to say that, at least on the personal level, there must have been SOMETHING likeable about the man. Nobody's all good or all bad, as the old folks say. Maybe someday, when a REAL biography of Mathis comes out, it can explain why Johnny Mathis felt such a kinship to them. Until then, I can only acknowledge that Johnny Mathis has lost someone he considered a friend, and on that basis ALONE I offer him my condolences.

UNTIL YOU COME BACK TO ME: In light of the fact that our beloved singers are leaving this world everytime you bat an eye, it really makes me thankful for the people, like my beloved Mathis, who are still here. The Lord chose not to take Luther Vandross for reasons only He knows, and I'm thankful. Join me in sending love and encouragement his way. He believes in the power of love, as well as the power of prayer, and so do I! Keep fighting, Luther!

TOUR BUS: The bus stops next in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. GOOD NEWS! Mathis returns to San Francisco on July 10! Visit See Mathis Live! for details.

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