Johnny Mathis Celebrates The Season With ‘Christmas Time Is Here’
New Album Available October 13th is Mathis’ Seventh Holiday Release
10-Track Album includes holiday favorites and a New Duet with Broadway Superstar Kristin Chenoweth
It’s impossible to imagine celebrating Christmas without the music of Johnny Mathis. In 1958, just three years into his tenure on Columbia Records and months after releasing the chart-topping Johnny’s Greatest Hits, his album Merry Christmas produced magical recordings of seasonal favorites like “Sleigh Ride,” “Winter Wonderland” and many more, which have become perennial favorites heard around the world every Holiday Season.
On October 13th – Johnny Mathis returns with Christmas Time is Here, a brand-new album from Columbia Records/Legacy Recordings (the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment). This merry collection features 10 newly recorded holiday tracks that capture the essence of the Yuletide season as only The Voice Of Romance can.
Christmas Time is Here will be available on CD and digital, plus festively colored vinyl released through Real Gone Music. Pre-order the album today HERE
The new release, produced by longtime Mathis collaborators Jay Landers (Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Andrea Bocelli) and Fred Mollin (Kristin Chenoweth, Jimmy Webb, Natalie Cole, Billy Joel) expands upon last year’s digital EP Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, which found Johnny in peak form as the world’s premier interpreter of holiday standards.
Christmas Time is Here includes, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” “Blue Christmas,” a remake of Johnny’s No. 1 U.K. single “When a Child is Born,” “Christmas Time is Here” (the timeless favorite from the beloved TV special A Charlie Brown Christmas), “Merry Christmas, Baby,” “O Little Town of Bethlehem” and a spirited take on “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” featuring Broadway superstar Kristin Chenoweth (Wicked, You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, Schmigadoon!) as Johnny’s duet partner.
Through an extraordinary career stretching across nearly seven decades, Mathis has continued making spirits bright with album after album of Christmas classics. After 1958’s Merry Christmas (certified 5x platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America – RIAA), 1963’s Sounds of Christmas, was the first on his own Global Records label. The platinum-certified Give Me Your Love for Christmas followed in 1969, and 1986’s Christmas Eve with Johnny Mathis featured unforgettable versions of “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” and “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” 2002’s The Christmas Album kept Mathis ringing in the season, while 2013’s GRAMMY-nominated Sending You a Little Christmas found Mathis collaborating with Billy Joel, Natalie Cole, Gloria Estefan, Vince Gill, Amy Grant and more.
The sessions for Christmas Time is Here took place at Hollywood’s famed Capitol Recording Studio (the final album recorded at the iconic Tower location before the studio closed for extensive renovations) and Nashville, and found Mathis reuniting with Jay Landers (producer/executive producer/A&R) – whose work includes 13 albums with Mathis, 30 with Barbra Streisand and five with Bette Midler – as well as producer Fred Mollin, who collaborated with Mathis on Let It Be Me: Mathis in Nashville (2010) and Sending You a Little Christmas, along with tracks by Michael McDonald, Linda Ronstadt and Carole King.
Christmas Time is Here is filled with all the warmth and magic that makes every Christmas – and every Johnny Mathis Christmas album – so special and timeless.
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