The master of love balladry, or as one writer more forcefully put it, ‘The King of Necking Music’, Mathis has a tender, slightly husky voice and sang in a manner akin to the later Nat ‘King’ Cole. At his best on tracks like ‘The Twelfth of Never’, ‘A Certain Smile’ and ‘Misty’, aided by Mitch Miller’s ethereal soundscapes, Mathis created a magical, private other world for his listeners in which young love would always endure. The son of a vaudevillian, Mathis, although he sang from an early age,  was an  outstanding  athlete and had  planned a career in physical education before he was signed to Columbia by

George Avakian in 1955. He recorded unsuccessfully in a jazz vein until Miller, Columbia’s head of A&R, took control of his career. In contrast to his dramatic productions for Frankie Lane and others, Miller gave Mathis caressing lovesongs and surrounded them with sympathetic sounds that highlighted Mathis’s poignant reading of the lyrics. The result was a series of huge hits, commencing with ‘Wonderful! Wonderful!' , ‘It’s Not for Me to Say’ and the classic double-sided disc, ‘Chances Are/Twelfth of Never’, that stretched to 1963. Other major records included ‘Come to Me’, the tremulous ‘A Certain Smile’, co-written by Sammy Fain, Erroll Garner’s ‘Misty’, ‘Gina’ and ‘What Will Mary Say’.
   More revealing of Mathis’s huge appeal to young lovers was the phenomenal success of Johnny Mathis Greatest Hits. One of the first ‘greatest hits’ albums, it was released when Mathis’s busy schedule prevented him recording a new album and remained on the Billboard charts for almost ten years. It was followed by 'Heavenly' which was almost as successful. However, though hugely popular in live performance, Mathis’s lack of singles’ success led him to leave Columbia briefly for Mercury in 1963. On his return to Columbia, he started regularly recording and performing contemporary material most of his previous recordings had been of songs by veteran Tin Pan Alley songsmiths by such writers as Carole King and Carlos Santana.
   The culmination of this development was his American No. 1, ‘Too Much, Too Little, Too Late’, a duet with Deniece Williams, a one-time member of Stevie Wonder’s Wonderlove backing group. The Mathis and Williams pairing was one of the first of many; in the eighties the strategy became an established industry marketing ploy to aid flagging careers and extend the audience for newer signings. Mathis himself was paired with Paulette McWilliams and Angela Bofill before returning to the charts with Dionne Warwick ‘Friends in Love’. His later albums included 'The Hollywood Musicals' (with Henry Mancini) and 'Once in a While'.