Influence
It is really no surprise that John would pursue a creative outlet for expressing his life experiences through songwriting. His father, Country Johnny Mathis , was a successful singer/songwriter in his own right with cuts by George Jones, Tammy Wynnette, Johnny Paycheck, Charlie Pride, Ray Price, Johnny Horton and even Elvis Costello (just to name a few) and the fact that he was raised on “old Country”, this would be the natural choice for expressing John's perspective on life.
Born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and taken across the border to his father's home state of Texas soon afterward, John was raised with much of the standard Southern traditions. A whole lot of church, including a lot of time playing piano with his father and brothers for congregational worship, and a whole lot of listening to those long playing LP's and spinning 45's of old Country tunes.
John's life and musical influences would eventually lead him into spending a number of years working in the Southern Gospel Music industry in the areas of songwriting, publishing, publicity and A&R, working with some of its legendary artists.
Songwriting is John's first love, a passion he naturally received from his father. During his tenure in Southern Gospel, John had the opportunity to co-write with many notable songwriters in several genres of music and garnered numerous cuts by some of Southern Gospel's legendary gospel groups.
Currently
John now focuses his time and efforts on his main passion, songwriting. He continue to writes where his heart and experiences lead as well as performing at songwriter venues where he showcases his dad's songs as well as his own. In 2007, John's home video performance of his song, "He Man Woman Hater’s Club" landed him among the Top 64 finalists in CMT's March Madness Video Competition 2007 (CMT.com) and in 2008 he released a Christmas single to Country and Americana radio "All I Want For Christmas Is Beer" . The song received great response from radio stations, syndicated shows, websites and even line dance clubs and venues!
John now resides just south of Nashville and continues to write and work with his publishing company, > Avid Group Publishing .
John Mathis Jr. DPK available via AirPlayDirect.com .