Love Is Blue (Johnny Mathis album)

Love Is Blue
Studio album by
Johnny Mathis
ReleasedMarch 6, 1968[1]
RecordedJanuary 23–24, 1968
February 3, 1968[1]
Genre
Length30:04
LabelColumbia
ProducerRobert Mersey[3]
Johnny Mathis chronology
Up, Up and Away
(1967) 		Love Is Blue
(1968) 		Those Were the Days
(1968)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic link
Billboardpositive[4]

Love Is Blue is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on March 6, 1968,[1] by Columbia Records and adhered even more strictly to the concept of the "cover" album of recent hits than its predecessor in that five of the 10 songs selected for the project ("I Say a Little Prayer", "By the Time I Get to Phoenix", "The Look of Love", "Never My Love", and the title track) were chart hits for the original artists within the previous year and another three ("Moon River", "Walk On By", and "Venus") had charted within the previous decade. Even the two remaining selections that did not bring chart success to the original artists were by the hit songwriting teams of Burt Bacharach and Hal David ("Don't Go Breakin' My Heart") and John Lennon and Paul McCartney ("Here, There and Everywhere") and left no room for the usual inclusion of some original songs or material from Broadway.

The album debuted on Billboard magazine's Top LPs chart in the issue dated April 13 of that year and reached number 26 over the course of 40 weeks.[5] It also made it to number 44 on the magazine's Best Selling Rhythm & Blues LPs chart during the six weeks it spent there that began in the July 6 issue.[6] The cover of Frankie Avalon's "Venus" "bubbled under" the Billboard Hot 100 to number 111 during its one week on the chart in the issue of the magazine dated June 22, 1968,[7] the same issue in which it also began its three weeks on the list of the 40 most popular Easy Listening songs in the US that included a peak position at number 23.[8]

Love Is Blue was released for the first time on compact disc in 2009 as one of two albums on one CD, the other LP being the previous Mathis release, Up, Up And Away.[9]

  1. ^ a b c (2017) The Voice of Romance: The Columbia Original Album Collection by Johnny Mathis [CD booklet]. New York: Sony Music Entertainment 88985 36892 2.
  2. ^ "Love Is Blue - Johnny Mathis". allmusic.com. All Media Network, LLC. Retrieved 10 August 2016.
  3. ^ (1968) Love Is Blue by Johnny Mathis [album jacket]. New York: Columbia Records CS 9637.
  4. ^ "Album Reviews". Billboard. 1968-03-23. p. 82.
  5. ^ Whitburn 2010, p. 503.
  6. ^ Whitburn 1999, p. 132.
  7. ^ Whitburn 2009, p. 628.
  8. ^ Whitburn 2007, p. 178.
  9. ^ "Up, Up and Away/Love Is Blue - Johnny Mathis". allmusic.com. All Media Network, LLC. Retrieved 8 August 2016.