ALBUM: Johnny Mathis, ‘Life is a Song Worth Singing: The Complete Thom Bell Sessions’

Johnny Mathis was one of the last great crooners, and despite being one of the most successful recording artists of the Twentieth Century, was somewhat of a man out of time. He released his self-titled debut album in 1956, at just 20 years old, and was poised to follow in the jazz-pop traditions of Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald. In 1957, when Mathis released his signature hits “Chances Are,” “Wonderful Wonderful,” and “The Twelfth of Never,” however, rock ‘n’ roll had already begun altering the sound of popular music: that was the year of Elvis Presley’s “All Shook Up” and “Jailhouse Rock,” Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On” and “Great Balls of Fire,” Fats Domino’s “I’m Walkin’” and “Blueberry Hill,” the Crickets’ “That’ll Be the Day,” and Sam Cooke’s “You Send Me.” By the mid-’60s, Mathis’ albums were no longer filled with jazz standards and romantic ballads, but movie themes and covers of contemporary pop songs, ranging from the expected (“Here, There and Everywhere,” “Never My Love”) to the surprising (“Light My Fire,” “Evil Ways”). Regardless, the material was seldom as important as who was singing. Mathis scored his final Top 40 hits in 1963, but his LPs continued to sell reliably for the rest of the decade, thanks to his velvety voice, pristine phrasing, and distinct air of elegant sadness.

Meanwhile, in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, producer, songwriter, and arranger Thom Bell was helping push pop music in a more refined direction. Along with Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, Bell was one of the chief architects of Philly soul. His approach to soul music was defined by lush beds of orchestral instrumentation and open-hearted, romantic songs — in short, a modern version of the sound that Mathis had built his career on. Bell made his name working with the Delfonics and the Stylistics and reinvented onetime Motown also-rans the Spinners into one of the star groups of the decade. He next turned his attention to Mathis, lobbying Columbia president Clive Davis for over a year to work with the singer before Davis relented, having worried that Bell’s sound was too “black” for Mathis’ primarily white audience.

The new compilation Life is a Song Worth Singing: The Complete Thom Bell Sessions (Real Gone Music) gathers every instance of the two artists crossing paths between 1972 and 2008, whether Bell was producing Mathis, or Mathis was simply reinterpreting hits from the Bell songbook. The heart of the collection comprises the two LPs the pair recorded together: 1973’s I’m Coming Home and 1977’s Mathis Is…, the latter making its CD debut on this compilation. Despite the inclusion of a couple of songs Bell wrote for other artists, these albums primarily consist of original material — something unheard of at that point in Mathis’ career.

While Mathis had always maintained a level of professionalism in his ‘60s and early ‘70s recordings, contributing thoughtful interpretations to even the most banal material, he sounds audibly reenergized on these two albums. Unlike Mathis’s collaborators at Columbia, Bell realized that the way to introduce the singer to a contemporary audience wasn’t to just have him cover recent pop hits, but to rethink where he could fit within the current pop landscape. Bell forced Mathis to restrain his vocals, encouraging him to sing at the lower end of his range and avoid his usual showy flourishes. The orchestral backing and lush balladry familiar from Mathis’ previous albums is subtly translated into something a bit more sensitive and low-key. As a result, the singer on I’m Coming Home and Mathis Is…  sounds modernized without compromising his signature sound or coming across as desperate.

Mathis had recorded two Stylistics covers before his collaboration with Bell (“Betcha By Golly Wow” and “Break Up to Make Up,” both included on this compilation as bonus tracks), and I’m Coming Home adds two more: “Stop, Look, Listen (to Your Heart)” and “I’m Stone in Love With You,” the latter of which would belatedly enter the Top 10 of the UK Singles Chart in 1975. Mathis’ interpretations of these established hits more than does justice to the originals, but the new songs, mostly co-written by Bell with lyricist Linda Creed, are often even better.

“I’m Coming Home,” the album’s opening track and lead single, filters Burt Bacharach-esque mid-tempo pop through a light dusting of soul; it became Mathis’ biggest pop hit since 1964 and first to make the R&B charts in a decade and climbed all the way to #1 on the adult contemporary charts. Mathis gently taps into the perpetual edge of sadness in his voice on the moving “And I Think That’s What I’ll Do” and “I’d Rather Be Here With You,” before revealing heretofore unknown levels of funkiness on “Sweet Child.” “Foolish” is the sort of gentle but emotionally shredding ballad that could have dated from his late ‘50s heyday, while “A Baby’s Born” allows Mathis to stretch out to near-operatic heights.

High-drama album closer “I Just Wanted to Be Me,” the only song not penned by Bell and Creed, but by Spinners songwriters Bruce Hawes and Joe Jefferson, would be a strong contender for the best song on the album. Yet it’s trumped by the album’s centerpiece and second single, “Life is a Song Worth Singing,” a six-minute masterpiece of swirling, cinematic production that transforms the mellow, melancholic balladeer into a tell-it-like-it-is dropper of truth bombs. (“You’re a fool if you think you’re helpless / you control what you do with your life.”) Perhaps it was too far out of Mathis’s persona to become the blockbuster it deserved to be, although it did manage to peak at a respectable #54 on the Hot 100 and #64 R&B.

Released four years later, Mathis Is… reunites the singer and the producer, but with somewhat diminished results. Bell was no longer on the hot streak that he had been earlier in the decade, and the sound he crafted for Mathis didn’t seem as fresh, with some of the tracks treading troublingly close to the wrong side of adult contemporary. Nevertheless, it too is packed with great songs, sensitive production, and Mathis’ evocative, nuanced interpretations. “Loving You – Losing You,” the best track on the album and an undeserved non-hit, is more soulful and driving that anything else the pair recorded together. The song recalls the Four Tops’ string of high-stakes mid-’60s singles, albeit with Levi Stubbs’ earth-shattering heartbreak swapped for Mathis’ more reserved regret. Other highlights include the uptempo “Hung Up in the Middle of Love,” the tortured ballad “I Don’t Want to Say No,” and a cheerfully defiant version of the Spinners’ “Sweet Love of Mine” produced not by Thom Bell, but by his brother Tony Bell.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE6Lq3kRaTE

Mathis’ collaborations with Bell may not have resulted in a major commercial success, but they did refresh his sound and reintroduce him to an audience that may have pinned him down as their parents’ (or other people’s parents’) music. The year after releasing Mathis Is…, the singer recorded the duet “Too Much, Too Little, Too Late” with Deniece Williams. The record hit #1 on the pop, adult contemporary, and R&B charts, outranking even Mathis’ string of ’50s and ’60s successes. Yet it was his lower-profile collaborations with Bell that started it all, reframing Mathis’s emotional tones through the filter of soul music and pumping new life into his career when it seemed in danger of stagnating.

Get your copy of Johnny Mathis’ Life is a Song Worth Singing: The Complete Thom Bell Sessions from the Real Gone Music online shop!

Sally O'Rourke

Sally O’Rourke works in an office and sometimes writes about music. She blogs about every song to ever top the Billboard Hot 100 (in order) at No Hard Chords. She has also contributed to The Singles Jukebox, One Week // One Band, and PopMatters. Special interests include girl groups, soul pop, and over-analyzing chord changes and lyrics as if deciphering a secret code. She was born in Baton Rouge and lives in Manhattan. Her favorite Nugget is “Liar, Liar” by The Castaways.