'I think I sing like my dad.' Johnny Mathis reflects on his life as the Voice of Romance

There's a classic scene in "Diner," an early '80s buddy picture set in 1959, where two friends are debating the merits of Frank Sinatra vs. Johnny Mathis in a diner booth.

Steve Guttenberg's character, Eddie, says, "You can't compare Mathis to Sinatra. There's no way. No way. They're in totally different leagues."

When Daniel Stern's Shrevie puts forth that they're both great singers, Eddie doubles down, inspiring Paul Reiser's Modell to try and redirect the conversation.

"Lemme ask you another question," Modell says. "When you want to make out, who do you make out to, Sinatra or Mathis?"

Eddie isn't having it. Eventually, though, he grudgingly admits it's Mathis.

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Johnny Mathis, who turned 86 last year, said he believes he may have seen the film at some point, but he can't recall the scene.

So he asked the reporter to explain what happens. When he heard that he's the one they turn to when they want to make out, Mathis laughed.

"It's kind of funny," Mathis said," now that I'm at the age I am, to listen to some of the things that were said about me when I was a kid, just starting out singing — how they rate you or what category they put you in."

Mathis is coming to Phoenix on the 'Voice of Romance' tour

He's not sure how his image came to be so fixed in the public imagination as a singer of romantic songs, despite the fact that he launched his career with a series of songs that practically define romantic, from "Wonderful! Wonderful!" and "It's Not for Me to Say" to "Chances Are," "The Twelfth of Never," "No Love (But Your Love)" and "Wild is the Wind." 

"I have no control over what people write about me," Mathis said with a laugh.

It's not that he's uncomfortable with being seen that way.

He's headed to Valley on the Voice of Romance Tour, which shares a title with the 68-disc box set Columbia Records released a few years back of every album he recorded for the label. 

"I think I sing like my dad," Mathis said.

"My dad was my best pal. He and my mom had seven kids. And he sang, so I sang. I got very lucky early on and got a recording contract. But I always thought I sounded like my dad. And that was fine with me."

Asked what kind of songs his father used to sing, he replied with a snatch of the chorus to "My Blue Heaven," a hit song for a crooner named Gene Austin in the '20s. 

"That's the only song I ever heard him sing," Mathis said. 

"And what happened is he said, 'If you want to sing, you should take lessons.' So from the time I was 14 or 15 years old, I studied with a wonderful woman by the name of Connie Cox."

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Mathis took 2 buses and a train to take singing lessons in Oakland

Mathis used to take two buses and a train to get from school in San Francisco to Cox's place in Oakland, where he'd do odd jobs for Cox while she was teaching other students.

"And by maybe 5 or 6 o'clock in the evening, I would have about a 30-minute or 40-minute voice lesson with this wonderful lady free of charge," he said.

"I would clean her apartment or her house. And that's how I paid for my voice lessons. It was a godsend for me."

The most important thing she taught him, Mathis said, was to open his throat. 

"I opened my mouth," he recalled. "She said, 'No, no, no, no. That's your mouth.' I said, 'How do I do that?' She said, 'Your throat is open to the fullest extent when you yawn. Try to yawn.'

"So those are the things that I remember learning as a very young kid. And it made my whole life."

Mathis said Cox is "the reason that I sing the way I sing," explaining, "She said, 'This is what you must do,' and I followed her instructions."

Mathis started singing in San Francisco jazz clubs

By the time he started taking lessons, Mathis was already singing in the jazz clubs around San Francisco, which he recalled as a very warm and loving place to grow up.

"I was very fortunate to grow up in San Francisco as they were very lenient about kids coming into nightclubs and things of that nature where liquor was served," he said. 

"From the time I was 12 or 13, I would go with my brothers and sisters to the jazz clubs. I would sit and drink my Coca-Cola, and occasionally someone on stage would ask the audience if they wanted to sing. I got up and I said, 'Yeah, I want to sing.' And I sang."

He was singing in a San Francisco jazz club called the Black Hawk when a man named George Avakian walked in and heard him sing.

Avakian was the head of Columbia Records' jazz division.

"He heard me sing when I was 17, I think," Mathis said.

"He said, 'Well, I'm coming back next year. Maybe we can do something.' Sure enough, a year later, he came back, heard me sing and said, 'I think you're ready.' He took me to New York. I signed my record contract. And that was the beginning of my career."

Mathis' first album for the label hit in 1956, a self-titled jazz release billed as "A New Sound in Popular Song." 

It failed to chart. 

That's when the head of Columbia's popular music division got involved.

The switch to pop music with Mitch Miller

"This guy by the name of Mitch Miller said 'I like your voice, but I hate that stuff you're singing,'" Mathis recalled.

"He said 'Jazz music is very wonderful, but it doesn't make money because nobody understands it. It's too complicated.' So they steered me away from jazz and got me totally enthralled and involved with popular music. And God bless them all."

It was Miller, Mathis said, who got him to record "Wonderful! Wonderful!," "Chances Are," "The Twelfth of Never," "It's Not for Me to Say" and "Misty."

"All of those songs were given to me by the head of popular music, Mitch Miller," Mathis said. "But I always kept my little jazz heart."

He didn't mind going along with the push to go more pop.

"I have six brothers and sisters," Mathis said. 

"So from the time I was a little, I was accustomed to taking instructions. Somebody would tell you something and you'd do it. If you could. Or you'd try. If it worked, fine. If it didn't, you would hope that somebody would give you something else to do."

Once they started giving Mathis songs like "Chances Are," his first chart-topping hit, there was no reason to try something else. 

"Johnny's Greatest Hits," a 1958 collection that included all those early singles, once held the record for most weeks on the Billboard album chart with a total of 490 on its way to going triple-platinum.

And after going 14 years without a Top 10 hit, the star returned to No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 in 1978 with "Too Much, Too Little, Too Late," a duet with Deniece Williams. 

Since then, he's been inducted to the Grammy Hall of Fame on three separate occasions – in 1998 for "Chances Are," in 2002 for "Misty" and in 2008 for "It's Not for Me to Say." 

In 2003, the Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences awarded Mathis the Lifetime Achievement Award.

And he's never stopped touring — at least until he got pulled off the road because of COVID-19. 

He's glad to be back on the road and looking forward to spending Valentine's Day weekend with his fans in Arizona.

"So many of my friends, my girlfriends and guys I grew up who also sang, I wonder what happened to them," Mathis said. 

"It's a difficult world sometimes when you're doing things like this, that appeal to a certain part of the public. And a lot of them along the way have not been able to practice the thing that they love in their life, which is music. I've been very fortunate in that regard. And I'm very grateful for it."

Johnny Mathis

When: 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 12.

Where: Talking Stick Resort, Loop 101 and Pima Road, Salt River Reservation.

Admission: $70 and up.

Details: 480-850-7734, talkingstickresort.com.

Reach the reporter at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4495. Follow him on Twitter @EdMasley.

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