Merry Christmas (Johnny Mathis album)


Merry Christmas is the first Christmas album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis and was released by Columbia Records on October 6, 1958. The selections are a mix of traditional Christmas carols and holiday hits.
The album debuted on Billboard magazine's list of the 25 Best-Selling Pop LPs in the US in its December 15, 1958, issue and got as high as number three during its initial four-week run. It made additional appearances there each holiday season from 1959 to 1962 and on the magazine's Christmas Albums and Pop Catalog Albums charts in subsequent years. It received Gold certification from the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of 500,000 copies in the US in December 1960 and in 2013 ranked as one of the top selling Christmas albums of all time with five million copies sold.
Four songs from the album – "Winter Wonderland", "Blue Christmas", "White Christmas", and "Sleigh Ride" – were also released on the EP Merry Christmas, Vol. 1, which reached number two during the 1958 holiday season and number seven the following year on the magazine's Best-Selling Pop EPs chart. "Winter Wonderland" also spent three weeks on the UK singles chart, where his recording peaked at number 17 over the course of three weeks that began on Christmas Day 1958.
The album was initially released only in the monaural format but became available in stereo in 1959. It was issued in the UK by Fontana Records and was later reissued in 1962 with a different cover both there and in the US. The original cover was used for compact disc pressings, the first of which was in 1984, and an edition featuring two bonus tracks was released on September 16, 2003. The 2015 Mathis compilation The Complete Christmas Collection 1958–2010, a 3-CD set on the Real Gone Music label, also includes the album in its track list.

Track listing

Side one

  1. "Winter Wonderland" – 3:19
  2. "The Christmas Song" – 4:18
  3. "Sleigh Ride" – 2:58
  4. "Blue Christmas" – 3:02
  5. "I'll Be Home for Christmas" – 4:04
  6. "White Christmas" from Holiday Inn – 3:32

    Side two

  7. "O Holy Night" – 4:35
  8. "What Child Is This? " – 3:58
  9. "The First Noel" – 3:49
  10. "Silver Bells" from The Lemon Drop Kid – 3:34
  11. "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear" – 3:08
  12. "Silent Night, Holy Night" – 3:51

    2003 CD bonus tracks

  13. "Christmas Eve" – 2:56
  14. "My Kind of Christmas" – 3:02
  15. * above two released as a single on 11/17/61

    Recording dates

Original album

From the liner notes for the 2003 CD release:
From the liner notes for The Complete Christmas Collection 1958-2010:

Personnel

Original album