The Grapevine News & Views

PRESENTS
the Grapevine...News & Views

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. 7 NO. 1 - JANUARY 2008

Johnny's new album, A Night To Remember, due February 5, 2008 NOW IT'S READY Obviously, since the last issue, they've changed the release date on Johnny's new album, A Night To Remember. It is currently due to release Tuesday, February 5, 2008. They don't have the picture on the official site yet, so here it is. The song list is as follows. Buy it through your favorite music repository, as "record stores" as such don't exist anymore.

We're In This Love Together (with Dave Koz)
All This Love
Always (with Monét)
Walk On By
Just The Two of Us (with Kenny G)
Hey Girl
Where Is The Love
Always & Forever
How About Us
The Closer I Get To You
You Make Me Feel Brand New (with Yolanda Adams)
A Night To Remember (with Gladys Knight)

I'll fill in a few of the blanks about the album. The song, A Night To Remember, was specially-written for Johnny Mathis by Jay Landers. The producer is Brazilian-born Walter Afanasieff, who is only a couple of years older than me, but has has a very successful career as record producer and songwriter. He's won two Grammy Awards - the gramophone kind, for those who insist these things make a difference: one for My Heart Will Go On being record of the year in 1999, and one for Producer of the Year, non-classical in 2000. He became known for producing Mariah Carey and Celine Dion, as well as for arranging for Whitney Houston.

It will be exciting to hear a new arrangement of Walk On By! This song last appeared on the Love is Blue album from 1968 - 40 years ago! And now we have a 2008 version to enjoy! I can't wait...Of course, I remember all the other versions of Walk On By I've heard over the years, most notably Dionne Warwick's original, her delectable re-make, which I got to hear personally in concert in Boston last year, and the one that makes you wet your pants by the great Isaac Hayes. Oh, my...

Thom Bell told NPR's Terry Gross of Fresh Aire that he was working on a project with Johnny Mathis. Could this recording of You Make Me Feel Brand New be a part of that project? And what a coup - singing with gospel great Yolanda Adams. I have SEVERAL of her albums. Well, OK, I have TWO of her albums. But she's fabulous. Second- and third-generation Mathis fans will love her, I promise! I love her because she's a Christian who is not afraid of singing with one of the greatest singers ever!

By the way, I've uncovered a website that is a historian's or librarian's DREAM. It's Second Hand Songs, and it's a database of songs that have been covered several times! Really, one could spend hours there. I appreciate the work that went into such a site.

I LOVE MUSIC CDs really are a technology of the past now. Well, the medium did last 20 years, from 1984 until iTunes and the iPod took hold in the early 2000s. (Yes, it's now the late 2000s. Can you believe it?!) For those who still cling to the older medium, A Night To Remember will still be available on CD. Downloaders can expect it soon. Try to get the high-quality DRM-free version if they make it available. It will remain to be seen whether a digital booklet will be made available with the release. These are usually free as long as you buy the whole album. Burn your purchase (minus the booklet) to your own blank CD for your car stereo, and you'll never have to worry about scratching up your original, since there's nothing to scratch.

Think about music as it pertains to a Johnny Mathis concert. You don't get to hold anything. Depending on how close a seat you got, you may not have much in the way of a visual, as Mathis was never much for light shows and such. And yet, the enjoyment you get out of it is tremendous. All you are really reacting to is the sound wave coming from the orchestra and the speaker connected to Johnny's mike to your ears. Incredibly, on mp3 and mp4 files, music is delivered to your ears in exactly the same way. A lot of people dismiss the digital file, but if you think of it, all sound is virtual. The only thing that's different nowadays is the MEDIUM.

When I was a teenager, vinyl LPs and their smaller counterparts the 45s were the MEDIUM which delivered the music. I bought many of them with my meager allowance. Before then, adults could enjoy music from a tape reel. Mother had an old Webcor that resembled a little suitcase that could play such things. Then came the car stereo, and the 8 track tape and cassette made it easy to make music portable. I never had a tape player of any kind before I started to drive. Then in the '80s the first digital music files were created and put on media called compact disc, minidisc, and digital tape. And you know, it took me a long time to fully embrace the CD. For one thing, this new media was expensive!! Could buy two or three LPs for what a CD cost, and it's even worse now. Second, they weren't as scratchproof as they were made out to be in the beginning. And third, I was caught up in the packaging. I loved album covers and lyrics sheets, and all of that didn't have anything to do with the actual music, but I was still in that pretend world the marketers had me caught up in back then. CDs were packaged in longboxes, though, so you still could get decent sized artwork, even though lyric sheets were a relic of the past by then. Boy, Elton John, my other favorite gay performer, sure packaged his recordings well, and still does. Then someone started squawking about how CD packaging was wasteful, while packaging for data CDs--computer programs and such--remains superfluous. By the time I was resigned to album art being a dinosaur as well, CD packaging had been reduced to a 4 inch booklet in a plastic box that always broke.

So nowadays the medium has evolved to the point where it doesn't even exist - it's a set of Xs and Os that take up room on your hard drive but not on your shelf. They don't melt in the sun, but they can be easily erased. I've come to prefer this form, actually. Any CDs I have now are usually gifts, and the first thing I do when I get them is throw away that stupid plastic box, load the CD into my iTunes, and put the CD and its booklet into a large leather binder. If the music is what's important, after all, this is as pure as it gets. It's accessible to all. A blind man or woman can still enjoy the music today as he or she could in the '70s.

Unlike myself and so many others of my generation, today's young people don't make the mistake of believing the medium IS the music! When they buy music, they buy the MUSIC, not the marketing that goes with it. Sadly, they also couldn't care less who wrote the music they're listening to, who produced it, where, and why. This is where I'm definitely a throwback to an earlier time! I'm the kind of person who watches the director's commentary on my DVDs, and I am usually the only one staying for the credits at the movie theater. When I have a work of art before me, I want to learn what went into every brushstroke. Maybe to today's generation X and Y, who grew up with fast-paced video games and MTV, taking the time to understand what went into something they like is more than they can handle. Sit such a person down to take in a slowly-paced European movie and watch them get annoyed at having to read and watch the film at the same time, and get very antsy waiting for something to happen! Our successors have no patience. But they're right about one thing. Music is what matters. And as it happens, music can only exist in the air; as long as there is air, there will always be music, that sweet communication from Johnny's lips to your ears, no matter the medium through which this sound must travel, whether through an amphitheater, or through your computer's speakers.

Oh, and those digital booklets? You can print them any size you need 'em. Sweet.

May God Continue to Bless You and Keep You Well, Mr. Mathis.

people want to see my news and views!

Proudly hand-coded on a Macintosh iMac computer.
Please use either Safari or Firefox to view these files.