The early 1970s was a tough time for established ballad singers, but Johnny Mathis, who was younger than his peers and Columbia Records labelmates like Tony Bennett and Andy Williams, weathered the lean times better than most. Some of the reasons why are suggested in this 1973 album. It wasn't a big seller by any means, but this enjoyable, contemporary-sounding set made the charts. Basically, all Mathis did was turn on the radio and cut a bunch of soft rock and easy listening hits of the time -- the title song, a chart ...
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The early 1970s was a tough time for established ballad singers, but Johnny Mathis, who was younger than his peers and Columbia Records labelmates like Tony Bennett and Andy Williams, weathered the lean times better than most. Some of the reasons why are suggested in this 1973 album. It wasn't a big seller by any means, but this enjoyable, contemporary-sounding set made the charts. Basically, all Mathis did was turn on the radio and cut a bunch of soft rock and easy listening hits of the time -- the title song, a chart-topper for Roberta Flack, Bread's "Aubrey," Perry Como's "And I Love You So," the Stylistics' "Break Up to Make Up," Gladys Knight & the Pips' "Neither One of Us (Wants to Be the First to Say Goodbye)," Skylark's "Wildflower," Stevie Wonder's "You Are the Sunshine of My Life," the Carpenters' "Sing," and Diana Ross' "Good Morning Heartache." But unlike Bennett, who had dropped from Columbia the year before, Mathis had no resistance to contemporary material; he sounded fine singing it. And though he had never had much of an impact in the R&B market, he was an African-American who could handle the Stylistics and Gladys Knight songs credibly, substituting his trademark tremulousness for their more soulful approach. At the same time, he could match both Perry Como and newer soft-rock stars like Bread and the Carpenters. Of course, it's not enough to cover other people's hits, and the oddity of the album was that Mathis missed a hit he should have had. The album closed with producer Jerry Fuller's "Show and Tell," which Columbia released as a single and got a minor easy listening chart entry out of it, only to see a cover by Al Wilson become a gold-selling number one pop hit a few months later. On the whole, Killing Me Softly with Her Song was not a great Johnny Mathis album, but it was much better than the embarrassments suffered by others at the time. ~ William Ruhlmann, Rovi
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