Johnny Mathis Sings is the vocal star during his late-'60s Mercury Records period, music which became harder to find after the singer returned to Columbia; a couple of these sides showing up on Sony/Legacy's The Global Masters release. It is the Columbia Records formula that Mathis had tremendous success with at play again here, Johnny bringing his distinctive emotions to popular tunes. He performs two more titles from the pen of Jay Livingston, the fellow who co-wrote "Twelfth of Never" with Paul Francis Webster, as well as P.F. Webster's own "Somewhere My Love", not-so-coincidentally a big, big hit for Ray Conniff -- a familiar name to the Mathis camp. "When Sunny Gets Blue" appeared on the immortal Johnny Mathis Greatest Hits package, and here he does his own follow-up, a marvelous study of Bobby Hebb's "Sunny", a slow tempo rendition songwriter Hebb has stated he is most proud of. "Eleanor Rigby" and "Strangers in the Night" get Johnny's attention and affections as well on this generous -- almost 40 minutes -- of popular music mixed with standards. The vocal on "I Wish You Love" is extraordinary Mathis, while his "Eleanor Rigby" is a different dimension for easy listening fans to travel to than when a group like Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops cover the Beatles' "Yesterday" and "Michelle," as they did on their Up, Up and Away album. The singer drives the listener on "(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me" and "Wake the Town and Tell the People", mellowing things out with "The Second Time Around", finding a different tone for "Strangers in the Night", wisely giving his own take on Frank Sinatra's Number One hit from the year before. Known as the "red and white" album to Mathis' fans, these dozen tunes are grade A, and sequenced very nicely.