Johnny Mathis Sings the Great New American Songbook is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on September 29, 2017, by Columbia Records and was composed of covers of recent hits by other artists. His last project to tackle the latest radio favorites was the 1996 release Because You Loved Me: The Songs of Diane Warren.

Mathis sang at a pre-Grammy party hosted by Clive Davis in February 2015 and, "by almost all accounts, brought the house down and the crowd to its collective feet with his performance of his past hits." The appearance inspired the idea to have the singer make a concept album that Davis would executive produce and Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds would produce, but instead of focusing on the Great American Songbook as Mathis has done throughout his career, the selections here date back only as far as the 1990s.

Allmusic's James Christopher Monger wrote, "What's best is that he sounds legitimately engaged throughout, even on the umpteenth reading of Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah,' and his voice, which is a bit overly treated at times (seriously, Johnny Mathis does not need Auto-Tune), is as strong as ever, making one wonder why it took so long for him to apply his still considerable gifts to more contemporary fare."

...
Wikipedia