John Royce Mathis is an American singer of popular music. Starting his career with singles of standard music, Mathis became highly popular as an album artist, with several dozen of his albums achieving gold or platinum status and 73 making the Billboard charts. Mathis has received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for three recordings.
Mathis in concert at the Chumash Casino Resort in Santa Ynez, California, in 2006
Mathis in 1960
Traditional pop is Western pop music that generally pre-dates the advent of rock and roll in the mid-1950s. The most popular and enduring songs from this era of music are known as pop standards or American standards. The works of these songwriters and composers are usually considered part of the canon known as the "Great American Songbook". More generally, the term "standard" can be applied to any popular song that has become very widely known within mainstream culture.
Frank Sinatra at CBS Radio in 1944