The Complete Global Albums Collection is a 13-disc box set by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released in 2014 by Legacy Recordings. It includes the 11 studio albums recorded by Mathis's own production company, Global Records, and originally distributed by Mercury Records between 1963 and 1966, as well as 31 additional tracks, 16 of which were being made available for the first time.
History
In 1963 Mathis left his original label, Columbia Records, for Mercury due to three factors: more money, "plus total control over his recording activities, and the added perk of owning his own masters."[2] The time of this transition was already a busy one: "During that same time I was working non-stop at different nightclubs around Manhattan... sometimes four or five performances a night at the Copacabana, The Blue Angel, Basin Street East. I was doing all this singing at night and then signed to record in the daytime. So a lot of the work I did at Mercury was done under a lot of duress."[2]
Because Mathis was used to the mentors he'd always had while recording at Columbia, his new position of power was a bit of a shock. "Now, all of a sudden, I was in charge of my own decisions in the studio, and I didn't have someone to guide me on what I was doing, right or wrong."[3] Although Don Costa was at the helm of his first Mercury LP, Sounds of Christmas, Mathis took on the role of producer for the next several albums. "But I wasn't a producer, and I didn't really realize until then how important producers were and how much they assisted me in my work."[3] After his Mercury contract expired and he returned to Columbia (bringing the Global material with him), Mathis had a much clearer sense of what he had been missing during his time away. "I needed someone to listen and suggest alternatives as far as my note selections were concerned... a producer who listens to you and says, 'I like what you're doing, but I hate that last note you made. Don't do that... do this.'"[4] For the 48 years between his last recording session for Mercury and the release of this box set, he has stayed with Columbia.
Album listing
The first 11 of the 13 discs each contain one of the Global/Mercury albums:
The disc for The Sweetheart Tree includes three bonus tracks that were part of the recording sessions for the album but only included on the UK version, which was titled Away from Home:
The credits provided for this disc in the booklet are complete as shown here. Tracks 2, 3, 4, 5, and 9 have no personnel listed in the box set packaging.
