Merry Christmas

Johnny Mathis | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B0000024QF
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (103 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #171,264 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Winter Wonderland

2. The Christmas Song

3. Sleigh Ride

4. Blue Christmas

5. I'll Be Home for Christmas

6. White Christmas

7. O Holy Night

8. What Child Is This? (Greensleeves)

9. The First Noel

10. Silver Bells

11. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear

12. Silent Night

Editorial Reviews

2009 holiday reissue. Merry Christmas was Johnny Mathis' seventh studio album for the Columbia label and his first of Christmas material. Featuring the orchestra of Percy Faith, the album would peak at #3 on Billboard's Christmas album chart and make a return appearance for the next 11 years. Pickwick. --This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Christmas classics, November 10, 2003

By 

Alejandra Vernon "artist & illustrator" (Long Beach, California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Merry Christmas (Audio CD)

Johnny Mathis has one the sweetest, smoothest voices I have ever heard, and it is perfectly matched for these lovely Christmas tunes; he even makes the two up-tempo numbers included, "Winter Wonderland" and "Sleigh Ride", sound soft and mellow.
My all-time favorite song is "O Holy Night", and his interpretation of it is superb, with a lush string arrangement, and a final gorgeous pianissimo note from Johnny. Hearing it never fails to inspire and move me.

This is a calming and peaceful collection, with songs like "Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)" and "Silent Night" taken at a slow and easy pace, with wonderful backing from Percy Faith and his orchestra. Mathis was a 23 years old when he recorded this in 1958, but was already a big star, and shows enormous musical maturity.
The bonus tracks, "Christmas Eve" and "My Kind of Christmas", I feel are slightly out of place. Though they were recorded a mere three years after the original songs for this album, they sound too "modern", as if they are from another era, and perhaps this is because the songs are not familiar classics like the rest; that slight quibble aside, this is an excellent collection of Christmas music, of such quality that it can be enjoyed any time of the year. The re-mastered sound is very good, and total time is 50'29.

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars BEAUTIFUL REMASTERING OF A CLASSIC, September 20, 2003

By 

Tom Anderson (Piney Flats, Tennessee United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Merry Christmas (Audio CD)

Christmas albums don't get more lovely or Christmasy-sounding than this 1958 classic. It is widely considered to be one of the very best Christmas albums of all time and has sold over 5 million copies so far in the U. S. alone. This recording has some of the best singing of Johnny Mathis' early career, and Percy Faith's arrangements are very evocative, particularly in the secular songs--you can almost see the snow and feel the chill.

In its previous CD incarnation, the album's only drawback was its fairly anemic and somewhat hissy sound. I am very happy to report that Columbia/Legacy has done a really nice job remixing and remastering this album. It now has greater fidelity and presence, with greater clarity to the vocals and instruments. Also, it seems to me that some of the excess echo has been removed--a good thing, since it was the style in the Fifties through part of the Sixties (particuarly if the tasteless Mitch Miller had a hand in the production) to add so much echo that albums sounded as if they were recorded in a wind tunnel. While certain instruments at times still seem a bit muffled in the mix, this is probably as good as this album
can sound given recording limitations of the time. My advice is to gladly throw out your old copy and quickly snap up the new edition. You'll be very glad you did!

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The greatest Christmas album ever recorded. Period., December 4, 2006

By 

quoter - See all my reviews

This review is from: Merry Christmas (Audio CD)

Any lover of Christmas music who doesn't have this cd is missing out terribly. It's amazing these songs were recorded all the way back in 1958. This is the standard that all Christmas music is measured by. With this most current remastered release, we have all the songs sounding better than ever. Christmas in our family wouldn't be the same without this music. That's how special it is.