Johnny Mathis

Second Disc Records and Real Gone Music continue celebrating the oeuvre of Johnny Mathis with this two-for-one collection featuring The Voice of Romance's 1976 and 1977 albums with producer Jack Gold and arranger Gene Page.  On these albums, Mathis saluted songwriters including Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield ("The Hungry Years"), Alan O'Day ("Do Me Wrong, But Do Me"), Stephen Sondheim ("Send in the Clowns"), Marvin Hamlisch and Ed Kleban ("One"), and the team of Michael Masser and Gerry Goffin ("Do You Know Where You're Going To," "I Always Knew I Had It in Me"). I Only Have Eyes for You introduced Johnny's longtime concert favorite "Yellow Roses on Her Gown" and the Christmas perennial "When a Child Is Born" as well as acclaimed singer-songwriter Harriet Schock's "Ooh, What We Do."   Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me found Mathis saluting his Columbia labelmate Barbra Streisand with the romantic "Evergreen," breathing new life into the vintage standard "All the Things You Are," and giving a classy spin to the Annie anthem "Tomorrow" in one of the song's first covers.  TSD's Joe Marchese has written the new liner notes based on interviews with Mathis and Schock, and Mike Piacentini has remastered at Sony's Battery Studios.