PRESENTS

Welcome to my op-ed page, The Grapevine News & Views. I started this section in 2002 so that I'd have a place to air my views on my own website. (Go figure.) Who knew blogging would become such a phenomenon! If you've sought this page out, here you will find 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. I also find Mathis connections, people, places, and events that have been touched by the influence of Johnny Mathis, and oftentimes I simply ramble. So thanks for reading what I have to say, and thanks for coming by.

VOL. 5 NO. 1 - FEBRUARY 19, 2006

WHERE DO I START: Boy, these last couple of weeks have been ones of fascinating contradictions, haven't they? First, Barry Manilow's new release of fifties ballads was the number one selling album in the United States. Isn't that insane?! This is an album, by the way, that includes the bold remake of a Johnny Mathis classic, It's Not for Me to Say. (Bold as in, yes, one could look upon it as a tip-of-the-hat to a song that was definitely one of the fifties' most enduring classics, but, is he out of his mind?!) Also, in a surprising bit of good news, a Johnny Mathis album is in the Top Ten this week! Not in the United States, mind you (that would be too good to be true), but in Great Britain, a compilation called "The Very Best of Johnny Mathis", which I'm told has had the kind of heavy television promotion I wish Isn't It Romantic could have had, has jumped to Number 6, and has given Mathis his first British top ten album since 1983. Though some odd and dubious headlines are coming from Mathis' renewed popularity overseas, it's still good to see a Johnny Mathis album on the charts, even if it is a compilation.

Considering that the recent results of the revered Grammy Awards show would imply that this style of music is about as relevant as the stagecoach, this is encouraging news for the genre. Obviously, the buying power of the middle-aged and senior buyers is making a mark on the album sales of so-called "Traditional Pop" music.

GRAMMY IS AS GRAMMY DOES: I have always had this love-hate relationship with the Grammy Awards show. When a good album comes out, such as Johnny's pristine Isn't It Romantic, the first thing I think of is how this music deserves to be nominated. Then when it is nominated (whether due to no competition or due to "worthiness", who cares, it's on the ballot), I then want it to win! But who actually wins? In certain categories, the Grammy Awards don't seem to be in any way reflective of the quality of the music its nominees and winners should represent, at least in my opinion. A Grammy Award was supposed to be more legitimate due to the fact that it was awarded by peer review rather than sales figures or popularity. But I wonder anymore if the award really is the standard of excellence it purports to be or even used to be, or has it come to pass that the winners are determined by a bunch of people pushed by their labels to vote for their friends and labelmates? That having been said, to have been nominated to receive one, or to actually receive one, is still considered quite the feather in the cap of the honoree. So that's my quandary. Even as I scoffed at the Grammy's legitimacy, I was pleased that Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight, Dianne Reeves, and Jessye Norman received theirs last week; that is, as pleased for them as I was disappointed that Mathis' own recording didn't receive one this year. Sometimes it boils down to if someone I like wins, it's legit, if they don't it's full of...you get the picture.

Tony Bennett won the Traditional Pop Award this year. Tony is a great guy who marched in Selma during the civil rights movement, and he doesn't have a bad voice, it's just not my cup of tea. I'm not going to say he didn't deserve it because I haven't heard the album, which incidentally was produced by Jorge Calandrelli, just like Johnny's. I wish Johnny Mathis would have had the Traditional Pop trophy. But it's not as if Johnny Mathis doesn't have any Grammy Awards at all, as far as I'm concerned. I know that's a huge point of contention for some people, but not for me. It's as plain as the brown on the back of my hand. In fact, I find it somewhat ironic that even among those who value the Grammy Awards, there is disagreement as to what a Grammy Award actually is.

There are those who would dismiss the accomplishments and the accolades that Johnny Mathis has received as, to use one person's terminology, "nothing awards". Meaning, they consider the induction of Mathis' recordings of Misty and Chances Are into the Grammy Hall of Fame "nothing". They see the Lifetime Achievement Grammy, which by its crystalline design represents recognition for the body of work amassed over an entire fifty-year career as "nothing"; nothing, that is, compared to a little brass gramophone-shaped trophy for one performance. They believe that only the gramophone-shaped trophy is the "Grammy" and anything else is worthless. I say, "bullocks".

Let me tell you all for the record what I believe. I believe that WHATEVER happened last Wednesday, Johnny Mathis IS a Grammy Award-winning recording artist, for whatever meaning one gets out of that title these days. Johnny Mathis has, in fact, been given the highest honor the Grammy people could possibly give him: a cut-glass award with a little brass gramophone carved into it to represent a career that has been a cut above all others. This was not the Betty Crocker Lifetime Achievement Award he's been given; it was a Grammy Award for a lifetime of service. The great opera singer Jessye Norman seemed pleased as punch to receive hers last week, and while I haven't asked her yet, I'll bet any amount of money that she doesn't consider her award "nothing".

And, Johnny Mathis did receive an award for his participation on the 2005 Album of the Year, Genius Loves Company, which features the song Over The Rainbow. All the album's participants received a Grammy, as per the rules. Was it a little brass gramophone-shaped trophy, or was it the diploma-like document with the Grammy emblem on it, such as they give the "secondary" participants on the recording such as engineers and sound mixers and the like? This I cannot say, maybe they don't do that like they used to back in the day. What I know is, Johnny Mathis was due one, by virtue of his being one of the "various artists" besides Ray Charles that were credited on that album. When in 2002 the soundtrack to O, Brother, Where Art Thou won for Album of the Year, all the participants of THAT recording got a Grammy Award for it, including Gillian Welch, who doesn't dumb the award down by calling it a "certificate" or merely "recognition". In 2000, according to Richard Cromelin of the Los Angeles Times in his article, "So Many in the Mix, What's 1/20th of a Grammy Worth" (probably archived by now, but well worth looking up), 35 people won the Grammy for Santana's album-of-the-year, Supernatural. (As a contrast, the Academy Awards limits the number of people credited in any given category to three. And as a side note, this year, Genius Loves Company won again for Best Surround-Sound album for being released last year as a SACD recording, but the award for that category goes to the mastering engineer and mixer.)

Two recordings that Johnny Mathis recorded are in the Grammy Hall of Fame, people. Nobody else's recordings of Chances Are is there. And all the fabulous (and not-so-great) recordings of Misty, only those of the Errol Garner Trio and Johnny Mathis are there. He's permanently there for all of posterity. I'm sorry, I can't call that "nothing". No song can exist without a voice to sing it, and it was that of Johnny Mathis they gave this honor to. Is this any less an honor because there is no little brass trophy to go with it?

So here is the tally for Johnny Mathis as I see it: Three Grammy nominations (Misty, Vocal Performance 1960; In a Sentimental Mood, Traditional Pop 1992; Isn't It Romantic, Traditional Pop 2006), two inductions into the Grammy Hall of Fame (Chances Are, inducted 1998; Misty,, inducted 2002), Grammy award co-winner, Album of the Year (Genius Loves Company, 2005), and one Lifetime Achievement Award Grammy.

I believe all of this is worth acknowledging. If they can't do it on JohnnyMathis.com, they should at least do it at Columbia Records and Legacy. I believe it is idiotic not to draw attention to any of these accomplishments just because these accolades aren't the first thing that come to mind when the name "Grammy" is mentioned.

Furthermore, I believe these are all Grammy Awards. For whatever being and having a Grammy Award is worth, that is. Face it, the Grammy is no Oscar. The Grammy is no Tony, either. But neither is it, in all of its forms, a "nothing" award just because, in the narrow minds of some, a little brass gramophone-shaped trophy is the only one that counts. I'm happy to not even cast my lot with the people who think like this. I don't think there's anything sadder than folks who can't see what's right in front of them. They can't see the beauty of the forest because there are too many trees in the way. Think of it: at 70 years old, Johnny Mathis had an album deemed worthy of a Grammy-Award nomination for whatever that was worth. (It was just bad luck to have this album come out when there was an album by Tony Bennett out the same year; reminds me of back in the 70s when Stevie Wonder dominated, other artists could just about count on not getting a Grammy.) I hope Johnny Mathis shares this sense of accomplishment with me.

And then there are the people who can't figure out why they would even "waste" an award on an old person at all. I read an article not too long ago where the writer asks why they even have a Traditional Pop category, why don't they merge the categories into just a Pop category. I can answer that, easily; Traditional Pop, probably best re-named Vintage Pop, is where someone actually sings, and does so without vocal enhancement, in front of a band or orchestra. Modern Pop artists almost all use some sort of digital vocal enhancement in their recordings. Traditional Pop honors the people who still know how to do it the "old-fashioned" way.

EIGHT YEARS OF IT: You know, I've had eight years of this now; eight years of being the anti-fan, eight years of pointing out what's gone horribly wrong with how people see Johnny Mathis, eight years of arguing with people for my right to say my peace, eight years of dealing with the zealots, the incompetent, and the indifferent alike, eight years of people who can't use a search engine, and yet, after all that I still want to give a damn about Johnny Mathis. By all rights, I really shouldn't. I don't have to tell anyone who has been interested enough in Johnny Mathis to want to know about him and want to see him more and hear him more, just how difficult he and the people who represent him makes it to even care anymore.

He won't promote his work, he doesn't have a public relations department worth a damn that's capable of keeping his name out there, especially to the people in the music business today who vote for Grammys. I think it was an accomplishment to even get nominated, but I think the voters know Tony Bennett better and have a lot more respect for him. But I can't blame the PR folk entirely; in my opinion, I just don't think Johnny Mathis wants any of this. I think he'd rather just play golf. Even when he was younger, this is all he wanted to do.

After eight years of this, it does get wearing. I do have to work to find a reason to get behind someone who doesn't give a damn. Mathis is going to have to want to do something for himself, sooner or later, if anything is going to be any different for him. If on the other hand, he doesn't want it to be any different, if he's happy playing American casinos to the eighty-somethings and then just going home, then really, trying to educate people about him makes little sense. One could find all they needed to know about him at the All-Music Guide. Might mention he's still alive, as of this writing. Period. Other than that, it doesn't matter what happens to him. Nominations are pointless. Medals of honor, Kennedy Center "recognition", all that is pointless. Where's he playing? It'll never be anyplace you're at unless it's South Florida, New England, California, or a casino. Will he be on Oprah, or Ellen, or anything promoting either what he's got going or what he'd LIKE to do? Of course not.

But after eight years of this, there are still so many questions without any intelligent answers. Where is the music school in his name, where he would teach now and then, and passes on his knowledge of the business and of technique to those coming up, so that boorish folk like Kanye West don't become the norm? Barbara Cook does this, and she's almost eighty. Could this not be a reality for Johnny Mathis, if he wanted it? What's stopping him?

Where is the music? If everything he's ever done in concert is recorded somewhere, where is it? San Francisco State University should have an entire library of all of this. Where is the Ernie Altschuler album from the mid-60s that never got released? Where is the Nile Rodgers album that never got released? Where is the country album? The Brazilian album? If Johnny Mathis owns the rights to all of this music, as is alleged, and merely leases it out to Columbia, what in hell is keeping him from releasing them himself if they won't do it? Why won't he make the decision to do so? Why doesn't he want to? In the age of iTunes, and self-publishing, what in the world is stopping him from doing so? Does he simply no longer want anything to do with the business?

Why won't he go overseas for something besides golf? Has someone so convinced him that he will have no audience in Europe, in Latin America, in Singapore, or even in South Africa? Is he so convinced that he won't make back the plane and hotel fare for himself, four musicians, and roadies, and find local musicians that would be honored to back him, to make it worth his while to go? I think the fact that he has a European top ten hit this week pretty much disproves that, I think he can be a success once again in Europe, and this was the case even before 2001, so what's the real reason he's not going?

And if ever there is an example of what an "official website" should look like, one should look no further than PeggyLee.com. This is the gold standard. (Notice the first thing you see when you visit this site is the sentence, "Grammy Winner - Lifetime Achievement Award". If it's good enough for Peggy Lee...) Push the enter button and you don't find annoying music you can't turn off, instead you can find the history to every recording Peggy Lee ever made (and are given the choice to listen to it), every concert she's ever performed, every TV show she's ever done, every song she's ever written. It's got the ubiquitous photographs page, but the crown jewel is the well-moderated bulletin board where not only enthusiasts participate but music professionals and even Miss Lee's family members join in, and you can read wonderful posts from some of the people who actually produced her albums. There is a place for contact information where one can write and ask questions and get back a prompt and friendly answer. It's just a beautiful example of a site that doesn't have to be high tech to be effective, informative, and just plain fun to visit. Whether you are a fan of Peggy Lee, or you know diddly-squat about her, there's something there for everybody. Is there any reason in the world Johnny Mathis doesn't deserve something even remotely similar?

And really, why doesn't Johnny Mathis have his equivalent of a Danny Bennett, a family member who wants these things for him the way Danny wanted them for his father?!

Johnny Mathis is the singer's singer, and he's the songwriter's singer. He's second to none. He just doesn't make it easy to love him anymore. Someone's got to have the balls to tell Mathis he deserves everything Tony Bennett and *sigh* even Barry Manilow have in their later years, and no real reason this day and age that he shouldn't have it. That he still plays to packed casinos has to mean SOMETHING to him. What's the missing ingredient?

Still, after eight years, in spite of the frustration, I still get an e-mail now and then that makes the grief and his indifference worthwhile, and makes me think, well, maybe it's not a waste of my time to see if he's up to anything lately. To those who have made the road bearable, I thank you three times over; for giving me a reason to still give a damn, for supporting The Mathis Chronicles, and for wanting to read my side of things by seeking out The Grapevine News and Views.

Thanks for coming.

©2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 Iris Gross Georg. All rights reserved. Absolutely NO part of this website may be used without my written permission.

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