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The General Forum
:
Celebrities
Jo Stafford
GeneHilbert
Date:
July 19, 2008 @ 3:24 AM
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Jo Stafford, the
honey-voiced band singer who starred in radio and
television and sold more than 25 million records
with her ballads and folks songs, has died. She
was 90.
Stafford died of congestive heart failure
Wednesday at her Century City home, her son, Tim
Weston of Topanga, said Friday. She had been in
declining health since October, he said.
Stafford had 26 charted singles and nearly a
dozen top 10 hits, her son said. She won a Grammy
for her humor.
Stafford's records of "I'll Walk Alone," "I'll Be
Seeing You," "I Don't Want to Walk Without You"
and other sentimental songs struck the hearts of
servicemen far from home in both World War II and
the Korean War. They awarded her the title of "GI
Jo."
In 1939, she was working with a group of male
singers called the Pied Pipers. The group was
invited to join the Tommy Dorsey band, a big
attraction in the swing era. Soon the Pied Pipers
were singing in major hotels and ballrooms and on
radio.
A year later, 24-year-old Frank Sinatra joined
Dorsey after a brief stint with Harry James, and
he and the Pied Pipers melded ideally. Their
languorous "I'll Never Smile Again" became the
No. 1 hit for 12 weeks and sold 2 million copies.
A half-century later, Sinatra remarked about
Stafford, "It was a joy to sit on the bandstand
and listen to her."
Dorsey gave Stafford her first solo, "Little Man
With a Candy Cigar," and it became a hit record.
One night in 1944 in Portland, Ore., the
temperamental Dorsey got into an argument with
one of the Pied Pipers and fired the group.
The Pied Pipers signed with the fledgling Capitol
Records, but Stafford left the group to join
Johnny Mercer, one of the Capitol founders.
Mercer guided her new career with hits such as
"Candy," "Serenade of the Bells" and "That's for
Me." In demand for personal appearances, she
accepted a date at New York's Club Martinique. A
shy person, she never played a nightclub again.
"I'm basically a singer, period," she said in a
1996 interview, "and I think I'm really lousy up
in front of an audience— it's just not me."
She was a "reluctant star," her son said. "She
loved making records and really didn't crave the
attention of personal appearances."
At Capitol, Stafford, who had been married to
Pied Piper John Huddleston from 1941 to 1943,
became reacquainted with Paul Weston, who had
been an arranger for Dorsey. They married in
1952, and he acted as her arranger and conductor
for the rest of her career. They had two
children, Tim and Amy, and four grandchildren.
Despite her shyness, Stafford appeared before
studio audiences in radio and television during
the 1940s and 1950s. She alternated with Perry
Como on a nightly 15-minute radio show in 1944,
guest starred on many TV variety shows and had
her own series, "The Jo Stafford Show," in
1955-56.
She recorded more than 800 songs during a
versatile career that included ballads, folk,
Scottish, country and novelty. She even tried
comedy. She and Weston recorded an album of
numbers on which she sang painfully off-key and
he played miserable piano. They were billed as
Jonathan and Darlene Edwards, but their identity
was soon discovered. A second album won them a
Grammy in 1960 for best comedy album.
Jo Elizabeth Stafford was born Nov. 12, 1917, in
Coalinga, Calif., where her Tennessee father had
come to work in the oil fields. When a new field
was discovered in Long Beach, he moved his wife
and four daughters south. Young Jo studied
classical music for more than three years and was
cast in a high school production of "Robert." But
the 1933 Long Beach earthquake destroyed the
school, and she joined her two older sisters
singing pop songs on radio as the Stafford
Sisters.
The Staffords sang background music at film
studios — where Jo met the Pied Pipers.
Stafford made her last recording in 1970 although
her songs continue to be used in movie
soundtracks, her son said.
She retired voluntarily, he said.
"It really was to raise my sister and I. She
walked away from it," he said. "People would sort
of ask her, `How come you stopped singing?' She
said: `For the same reason that Lana Turner
doesn't pose in bathing suits anymore.'"
In addition to her son, Stafford is survived by a
daughter, Amy Wells of Calabasas, and four
grandchildren.
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