My first experience with Jerry Fuller involved the two albums he produced for Mathis. They are:"Me and Mrs. Jones" and "Killing Me Softly". In those days, Mathis made albums covering popular songs of the time. Columbia, his label at the time, had staff producers and engineers who made all the records at in-house studios. Jerry was one of the better staff producers. Actually, the "Me and Mrs. Jones" album was started at Columbia studios and he left to become an independent and finished it with me at Larrabee Studios. Since they were all union sessions, there had to be a union engineer whenever other union people were working. Fuller wanted to use me and not the assigned union engineer, so they would pay some poor guy to sit out in the hall while we worked.

Mathis was always one of the most prepared singers and the nicest to work with. I don't think I ever heard him sing off-key. Fuller would always sing a guide vocal for Mathis to show him the melody etc. Mathis would have fun with this and sometimes sing exactly mimicking Fuller's vocal inflections, vibrato and style. After a session, John would always call the studio to tell us he got home safely.

Get Yours Now At Amazon.com!