Christmas duets with Johnny Mathis

Fanfare please. Ta-Da! I now have the Christmas album by which I will always remember 2013. I thought it would be the new releases by Kelly Clarkson or Mary J. Blige. But what I got is even better. It is a new CD by the legendary and now 78-year-old Johnny Mathis, Sending You A Little Christmas. It is the album that anybody who loves Christmas music should not be without this year. I have had it on the player for days and it is sooooo great.

Mathis is one of those singers who I believe is a voice of Christmas. It is not only because he conveys the right spirit when he does Christmas songs or that he has already recorded around six or seven Christmas albums. It is also because just like Bing Crosby has his White Christmas, Nat King Cole his Christmas Song also known as Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire or Andy Williams his It’s A Most Wonderful Time Of The Year, or Karen Carpenter her Merry Christmas Darling, Mathis has his Sleigh Ride.

It was way back in the late ’50s when the then hot singing heartthrob Mathis made a pop hit out of the old Christmas carol and added it to his big sellers like Warm, A Certain Smile, Misty, The Twelfth Of Never, Chances Are and others. Sleigh Ride was one of the cuts in his first Christmas album, simply titled Merry Christmas. His was not the original version. It was an orchestral piece by the great American composer Leroy Anderson. The song was later given lyrics by Mitchell Parish. The initial recordings with vocals were done by the Andrews Sisters and Crosby.

 I wish I knew who Mathis’ arranger and producer for Sleigh Ride were. They had a big hand in the song’s Yuletide popularity despite it having no mention of Christmas or anything associated with it in the lyrics. Just a sleigh and snow. It was their happy, soaring treatment of the song that made it a big hit. Since then, the smooth, velvety tenor of Mathis has acquired a distinct Yuletide identity. He recorded several big-selling Christmas albums over the years but the one that is treasured the most is the LP Merry Christmas that contains Sleigh Ride.

His latest, Sending You A Little Christmas, should rank as a very close second. Finding out that he has recorded a new album, Christmas or no Christmas, is already great news. This one is a throwback to classic elegance with a light touch of country and Mathis’ singing, so smooth and effortless, still sounds fantastic. He should be recording more often. And he made this CD truly special. The album is made up of duets with different artists and every cut has this uplifting effect that seems to come only from celebrating Christmas.

Get a load of this line-up of collaborations: The Christmas Song, a duet with rock star Billy Joel; a dreamy Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas with Natalie Cole; Sending You A Little Christmas with Jim Brickman, who also composed the title song playing the piano; Mary’s Boy Child with Gloria Estefan’s gorgeous alto; Do You Hear What I Hear with the heavenly sounding Susan Boyle; Home For The Holidays with the famous Jordanaires, the same band that used to back Elvis Presley; and a killer trio with country music stars Vince Gill and Amy Grant in a medley of I’ll Be Home For Christmas and White Christmas.

Now, those are not the only contents of the album that was masterfully produced by Fred Mollin who also did Let It Be Me, the Mathis in Nashville album. It may seem impossible given the stellar names of his co-singers but it cannot be helped. The best cuts in the CD are the solo songs by Mathis. These are Donny Hathaway’s This Christmas, the new songs This Is A Time For Love and Decorate The Night and a lovely take on the Irving Berlin standard Count Your Blessings (Instead Of Sheep). But the best of the lot, the sweetest icing on the cake is the Carpenters’ Merry Christmas Darling.

I know I said earlier that Merry Christmas Darling would always be Karen Carpenter’s. Nothing can change that. But it is also a fact that the unthinkable has happened. Mathis has taken the Richard Carpenter/Frank Pooler composition and made it his own. The arrangement and the mix are superb and the romance inherent in Mathis’ style has made it truly beautiful. If I were to put my finger on the one thing that made this song a winner, then I would say that this is it. It is the idea that if you were in love in the ’70s and was expressing it with Karen Carpenter in the background, then Mathis’ new version should be in your soundtrack now.