John Royce "Johnny" Mathis (born September 30, 1935) is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 singer of popular music

Popular music

Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...

. Starting his career with singles of standard

Standard (music)

In music, a standard is a tune or song of established popularity.-See also:* Blues standard* Jazz standard* Pop standard* Great American Songbook-Further reading:* Greatest Rock Standards, published by Hal Leonard ISBN 0793588391...

s, 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

Billboard charts

The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs or albums in the United States. The results are published in Billboard magazine...

. According to Guinness Book of World Records writer and charts music historian Paul Gambaccini

Paul Gambaccini

Paul Matthew Gambaccini is a radio and television presenter in the United Kingdom...

, Johnny Mathis has sold 350 million records worldwide.
Mathis was born in Gilmer, Texas

Gilmer, Texas

Gilmer is also the name of a county in West Virginia.Gilmer is a town in and the county seat of Upshur County, Texas, United States. It is best known for being the birthplace of popular music singer Johnny Mathis. The population was 4,799 at the 2000 census...

, the fourth of seven children of Clem Mathis and his wife, Mildred Boyd, an African-American.