Hi friends – welcome back to 50s Tunes with Steve - the best place to learn about, listen to, and snap along with some of the great artists of the 1950s.
There were many high charting female vocalists in the 1950s. I’ve covered Miss Patti Page, as well as the great Kay Starr, but today I’m going to cover one of the most versatile voices in music – the unmatchable, Jo Stafford.
As always, links to the songs are left throughout the blog, so please listen along as you read!
The Pied Pipers and G.I. Jo
Stafford was born in 1917 and invested herself in singing at age 12.
Her early career included a small trio with her two older sisters in the mid-1930s. They called themselves the “Stafford Sisters.” Shocker!
By the end of the 1930s, going into the early 40s, Stafford left the trio with her sisters and became the lead singer for a new group she had helped form, called “The Pied Pipers.”
The group was hired to sing backup vocals for well-known band leader Tommy Dorsey, but in 1942, after Dorsey lost his temper with one of the members and fired him, the group made the decision to leave Dorsey all together out of respect for their teammate and signed on with Capitol Records.
They saw quite a bit of success in terms of chart singles, but it was in 1944 that Stafford and the group recorded a song called “The Trolley Song,” with Jo singing the complete lead vocals.
The song became a #2 record, and it was at this time Stafford realized there was a solo career in her future.
By 1945 she had left The Pied Pipers for good, and recorded many hit songs for Capitol in the mid to late 1940s.
A few of her hits at this time included, “Long Ago (and Far Away),” “Candy,” and “Some Enchanted Evening.”
During WWII Stafford made various appearances in front of the American soldiers stationed in the U.S., earning her the nickname “G.I. Jo!”
Her smooth, angelic voice comforted many of the men at war, becoming a personal favorite for many, including the enemy!
Rumor has it that Japanese soldiers would play Stafford’s records over loudspeakers in an attempt to make the U.S. soldiers homesick.
The 50s
Stafford had become romantically involved with orchestra leader Paul Weston who had provided the music to many of her recordings for Capitol, and in 1950 when Weston signed on with Columbia Records, Stafford elected to follow suit.
She recorded 8 final records for Capitol, her most successful being “No Other Love,” a sweet and tender ballad, which had been her typical style.
Moving to Columbia records, Stafford decided it was time to up the tempo, which would end up leading her to far greater success in terms of chart hits.
Her first big hit with the label came in 1951 when she recorded a song called “Shrimp Boats,” which became a #2 record.
Following this song, she had a few other minor hits including “Hey Good Lookin’” also in ’51, and “Hambone,” and “Ay-Around The Corner” in 1952.
It was that same year Stafford would record her most recognizable song – “You Belong To Me.”
The record went all the way to #1, reaching the #4 slot on Billboard’s top 30 singles of that year, and was the first record by a female artist to reach #1 in the United Kingdom.
Also in 1952, Stafford covered a well-known Hank Williams country tune titled, “Jambalaya (On the Bayou,)” which she turned into a pop record and brought to #3, charting at #15 on Billboard’s top 30 singles of ’52.
To top off all of the success that year, she finally married Weston who would be the love of her life from there on out.
Stafford didn’t see any major hits in 1953, but in 1954 she returned to the top once again with another #1 record – “Make Love To Me.”
I think the most intriguing fact about this song is that it took 8 songwriters to comprise the music and lyrics, an unusual number of writers for one record.
That same year, Stafford had a few more minor hits, most prominently, “Thank You For Calling,” and “Teach Me Tonight,” a well-known American jazz standard.
With the rise of Rock N Roll in 1955, Stafford’s chart popularity began to take a major decline, only recording two songs that would reach the charts – “Suddenly There’s A Valley,” and “It’s Almost Tomorrow.”
Both songs did fairly well but neither making the Billboard top 30 singles of 1955.
In one of my prior posts, I talked about Stafford’s attempt at performing Rock N Roll, where she did a cover of Ray Charles “I Got A Woman.” You can read about her cover, “I Got A Sweetie,” here – The Popsters vs. The Rock N Rollers
Take a listen to this melody of Jo Stafford’s big hits here, on a show Patti Page hosted called – “The Big Record!”
Later Career
By 1959, Stafford’s career was beginning to wind down.
She was fairly surprised by the amount of control the younger generation was beginning to have on the music market, and felt that sophisticated songs were losing their place on the charts.
By 1960, Stafford’s contract with Columbia had ended, and she basically went into retirement, only recording some American Folk Songs and religious songs in the mid-1960s and early 1970s.
Stafford died at age 90 on July 16th, 2008.
That’s all for today!
Thanks for reading folks, I hope you enjoyed hearing these great tunes, and I hope maybe you’ll go out and listen to “G.I. Jo” yourself after hearing some of her great music!
Until next time friends, this is your 50s music fanatic, Steven B. – signing off!
Comments