John Royce "
Johnny"
Mathis (born September 30, 1935) is an American singer of
popular music and
jazz. Starting his career with singles of
standard music, he became highly popular as an album artist, with several dozen of his albums achieving gold or platinum status and 73 making the
Billboard charts to date. Johnny Mathis has sold well over 350 million records worldwide, according to Guinness Book of World Records writer and charts music historian
Paul Gambaccini and other sources. This makes Mathis the third biggest selling artist of the 20th century.