| In the Still of the Night | |
| Type: | album |
| Artist: | Johnny Mathis |
| Cover: | Mathis-Still.jpg |
| Released: | August 8, 1989[1] |
| Recorded: | May–November 1988 |
| Studio: | Alpha Studios, Burbank, California, Conway Studios, Hollywood, California, Smoketree Studio, Chatsworth, California[2] |
| Length: | 39:23 |
| Label: | Columbia |
| Producer: | Peter Bunetta Rick Chudacoff |
| Prev Title: | Once in a While |
| Prev Year: | 1988 |
| Next Title: | The Island |
| Next Year: | 1989 |
In the Still of the Night is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on August 8, 1989,[1] by Columbia Records and continues the trend that began with his 1986 collaboration with Henry Mancini, The Hollywood Musicals, in that the project is devoted to a specific theme that ties the songs together. Mathis hints at the theme for this album in the liner notes for his 1993 box set The Music of Johnny Mathis: A Personal Collection, where he gives his thoughts on the 1964 Little Anthony and the Imperials song "I'm on the Outside Looking In" that he covered for his 1988 album Once in a While: "That was group singers' kind of material. I was singing other stuff. It wasn't the picture of the lone crooner standing in the spotlight. That's what I was doing when all this other stuff was going on. I never listened to it until it was brought to my attention by [that album's producers] Peter Bunetta and Rick Chudacoff." Mathis chose to continue his work with Bunetta and Chudacoff on this project, which focuses on "this other stuff" that Mathis refers to: pop and R&B hits from the 1950s and 1960s.
Although the album did not make it onto Billboard magazine's Top Pop Albums chart, it did receive praise in People, where the reviewer remarks that Mathis and the album producers "make these songs sound reconsidered, not merely recycled." It's also noted that "Mathis's ability to extract every last nuance from a lyric has never been employed to better advantage" and that "Take 6's presence enables him to prove that he can keep up with the younger generation."[3]
The album also received a positive retrospective review from AllMusic, where Bil Carpenter noted the "clean, uncomplicated orchestration," and deemed it "one of Mathis's best recordings to date."
From the liner notes for :[1]
From the liner notes for the original album:[2]