[JPL] Jo Stafford LA Times Obituary

[Doug Crane]

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-stafford18-2008jul18,0,5487939.story

 From the Los Angeles Times
Jo Stafford, 90; singer, recording artist entertained GIs during World War II
By Don Heckman
Special to The Times

July 18, 2008

Jo Stafford, a singer who was a favorite of GIs during World War II 
and whose recordings made the pop music charts dozens of times in the 
1950s, died Sunday of congestive heart failure at her home in Century 
City. She was 90.

According to her son, Tim Weston, she had been in ill health since 
October and had been hospitalized several times since 2002.

Stafford had a long career but enjoyed most of her success from the 
late 1930s to the early '60s. Her skills were apparent from the 
beginning, when she sang as a teenager in a vocal trio with her two 
older sisters, Pauline and Christine.

"Mom graduated from high school on a Friday and was doing soundtracks 
at RKO on Monday," her son said.

Qualities that were present at that time became the foundation of her 
vocal style: her impressive technical skills, flawless intonation and 
cool but expressive tone. Whether Stafford was singing romantic 
numbers such as "You Belong To Me" -- a No. 1 hit in 1952 -- or 
making duets with Frankie Laine on the lighthearted, comedic 
"Hambone" (a No. 5 hit the same year), her performances were superb 
displays of crystal-clear musicality combined with an insightful 
understanding of lyrics.
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FOR THE RECORD:
Stafford obituary: A news obituary of singer Jo Stafford in Friday's 
California section incorrectly reported that she died Sunday. She 
died Wednesday.

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Those skills were particularly useful early in her career, first when 
she was singing lead in the trio with her sisters, then during her 
work with the Pied Pipers. Initially an octet, with seven male 
singers and Stafford, it was pared to a quartet when the group began 
working with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra in 1939.

Stafford's solo career began with an inextricable link to the war. A 
favorite of American soldiers, she was told by a veteran of the 
Pacific that "the Japanese used to play your records on loudspeakers 
across from our foxholes so that we'd get homesick and surrender." 
Not surprisingly, servicemen affectionately referred to her as "GI Jo."

Stafford and her second husband, pianist/composer Paul Weston, were 
viewed by most of their contemporaries as musical class acts who 
brought clarity, focus and sophistication to the most lighthearted 
pop music. Which made their transformation into Jonathan and Darlene 
Edwards -- a duo that was the surprising last highlight of Stafford's 
career -- such a remarkable accomplishment.

The premise was simple enough: They would do imitations of a 
minimally skilled duet of singer and piano player -- the sort who can 
frequently be heard in no-cover-charge cocktail lounges everywhere. 
But as interpreted by Stafford's pliable voice, the songs came out 
just a little sharp in one spot, a bit flat in another, with the 
rhythm slipping from beat to beat.

Did Stafford find it difficult to sing in such ear-jarring fashion? 
"Well, Jo Stafford might have found it difficult," she told the 
Chicago Tribune in 1988, "but Darlene had no problem at all."

It worked so well, in fact, that the duo's recording of "Jonathan and 
Darlene Edwards in Paris" won the Grammy for Best Comedy Album of 
1960. It was the only Grammy that Stafford would win.

Jo Elizabeth Stafford was born Nov. 12, 1917, in the San Joaquin 
Valley town of Coalinga. Her parents, Grover Cleveland Stafford and 
Anna York Stafford, moved the family to Long Beach, where she 
graduated from high school after having five years of classical voice 
training. Besides her singing, she was, according to her son, a very 
good pianist.

After working for the Dorsey Orchestra from 1939 to 1942, Stafford 
began her solo career as one of the first acts on the new Capitol 
Records label. She moved to Columbia Records in 1950 and back to 
Capitol in 1961. Although she was active for a relatively brief time 
as a solo artist, she sold more than 25 million records.

Once she had decided to end her singing career in the mid-1960s, 
however, Stafford seemed little tempted to return.

Asked at the time whether she might consider the sort of comeback 
that had worked for such contemporaries as Rosemary Clooney and Patti 
Page, her response was concise and to the point. She no longer sang, 
she said, "for the same reason that Lana Turner is not posing in 
bathing suits anymore."

Stafford did make a few appearances after the 1960s, among them a 
revival of Jonathan and Darlene Edwards in the late '70s for which 
she sang inimitable lounge versions of the Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive" 
and Helen Reddy's "I Am Woman."

Stafford's first marriage -- to Pied Pipers singer John Huddleston -- 
ended in divorce. She married Weston in 1952; they had two children, 
Tim, a musician and record producer, and Amy, a singer. Her husband 
died in 1996.

She is survived by her children; four grandchildren; and her younger 
sister, Betty Jane. Services will be private.

Instead of flowers, donations may be made to the Share Inc charity.