Johnny's Greatest Hits

Johnny's Greatest Hits
Greatest hits album by
Johnny Mathis
ReleasedMarch 17, 1958[1]
RecordedSeptember 20, 1956
June 16, 1957
October 1, 1957
October 31, 1957
January 7, 1958[1]
StudioCBS 30th Street Studio
New York City
Genre
Length32:47
LabelColumbia
ProducerMitch Miller[1]
Al Ham[A]
Johnny Mathis chronology
Good Night, Dear Lord
(1957) 		Johnny's Greatest Hits
(1958) 		Swing Softly
(1958)
Alternate covers
UK album cover
Alternative cover
1977 reissue cover
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic link
The Billboardpositive[3]

Johnny's Greatest Hits is a compilation album by vocalist Johnny Mathis that was released by Columbia Records on March 17, 1958,[1] and has been described as the "original greatest-hits package".[2] The LP collected all but one of the songs from the first six singles he recorded, including eight A- and B-sides that made the singles charts in The Billboard (now simply known as Billboard magazine) as well as three B-sides that did not chart and one new track ("I Look at You") that was co-written by Mathis but not released as a single.

The album made its debut on the Best Selling Pop LPs chart in the issue of The Billboard dated April 14, 1958, and eventually spent three weeks at number one.[4] It had its last appearance there over 10 years later, in the July 20, 1968, issue, which marked its 490th non-consecutive week there,[5] a record for the most weeks on the magazine's list of the most popular pop albums in the US that it held for 15 years until Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon reached 491 weeks there in the issue dated October 29, 1983.[6] Johnny's Greatest Hits received gold certification from the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of 500,000 copies in June 1959,[7] and Platinum certification for reaching the one million mark was awarded on November 1, 1999.[8]

The album was initially only available in the monaural format but was reissued in 1962 with a banner added to the original cover that read, "Electronically Re-channeled for Stereo".[9] In 1977, the album was once again reissued, this time with a new jacket design that included a current and much larger headshot of Mathis. This cover was also used for its first release on compact disc in 1988[10] and as part of a 1995 three-disc set that included his Platinum 1959 album Heavenly and his 1984 concert album Live.[11]

  1. ^ a b c d (2015) The Singles by Johnny Mathis [CD booklet]. New York: Columbia Records 88875120552.
  2. ^ a b "Johnny's Greatest Hits - Johnny Mathis". allmusic.com. All Media Network, LLC. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  3. ^ "Review Spotlight on Popular Albums". Billboard. 1958-04-07. p. 22.
  4. ^ Whitburn 2010, p. 504.
  5. ^ "Top LP's". Billboard. 1968-07-20. p. 70.
  6. ^ "Top LP's & Tapes". Billboard. 1983-10-29. p. 73.
  7. ^ "Gold Disks for Mathis Album, Horton Single". Billboard. 1959-06-22. p. 12.
  8. ^ RIAA Gold and Platinum Search for titles by Johnny Mathis
  9. ^ "Johnny Mathis - Johnny's Greatest Hits". Discogs. Retrieved 13 March 2016.
  10. ^ "Johnny's Greatest Hits - Johnny Mathis - Releases". allmusic.com. Rovi Corporation. Retrieved 28 March 2016.
  11. ^ "Heavenly/Greatest Hits/Live - Johnny Mathis - Releases". allmusic.com. Rovi Corporation. Retrieved 28 March 2016.