The record in context

“Misty” began as a jazz instrumental, written and recorded in 1954 by pianist Erroll Garner — a 32-bar composition of unusual harmonic richness. Lyrics were added later by Johnny Burke. The story goes that Johnny Mathis first heard Garner play the tune when he was a teenager, and told Garner he would love to sing it if it ever had words. Years later, Mathis recorded it on April 21, 1959, for his album Heavenly; released as a single that September, it reached No. 12 on the American pop chart (and No. 12 in the UK), earned him his first Grammy nomination — Best Vocal Performance, Male, at the 3rd Annual Grammys — and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002.

Heavenly itself was a phenomenon: it spent five weeks at No. 1 and 295 weeks on the album chart, going Platinum. But “Misty” transcended even that success to become Mathis’s signature song — the one audiences expect, the one that defines him.

Listen closely

The opening is just voice and implication: “Look at me, I’m as helpless as a kitten up a tree.” Mathis sings it with a vulnerability that’s almost startling — this is not the confident crooner of “Chances Are” but someone genuinely overcome. The genius of the performance is that the helplessness is completely controlled: every note is placed with jeweler’s precision, even as the lyric describes losing control.

Listen for the famous oboe. In the instrumental passages, Mathis’s voice blends with the oboe so seamlessly that at moments — around the middle of the record — it’s genuinely hard to tell where the voice ends and the reed begins. It’s an extraordinary piece of arranging and an even more extraordinary piece of singing: to match an oboe’s pure, reedy tone with a human voice requires a control of timbre that few singers in history have possessed.

The harmonic sophistication of Garner’s composition gives Mathis room to show his musicianship. The chord changes are jazzier than anything else in his hit catalog, and he navigates them the way a great jazz singer would — while never abandoning the romantic directness that made him a pop star. That balance, between jazz complexity and pop clarity, is the essence of his art.

Play it after the 1957 hits and you hear an artist deepening: the voice is the same, but the emotional palette has widened. The boy who asked Garner for lyrics grew up to give the song its definitive reading — and in doing so, gave himself the signature that would follow him for the rest of his life.