KWXY Presents ● A Classic Conversation with Jo Stafford and the Music of The Pied Pipers

Photo of Jo Stafford from The New York Sunday News. September 21, 1947

Jo Stafford was a singer, comedienne and actress active from the 1930s through 1982.  Trained as an opera singer, Stafford chose to perform as a pop singer and amassed more worldwide record sales than any female artist by 1955.  One of her biggest songs was “You Belong to Me” in 1952, a number one hit in both the US and UK.  Despite cover versions by a variety of artists in later years, including a Top 10 doo-wop version by The Duprees in 1962 and a version by Ringo Starr in 1981, hers remains the most popular.

She was born Jo Elizabeth Stafford on November 12, 1917 in Coalinga, California and began singing publicly by age 12. She met a group of singers on a movie set in 1938 who would later become The Pied Pipers with Stafford on lead vocals.  The group was hired by Tommy Dorsey in 1939 as backup singers; Stafford was also a solo vocalist for the orchestra. 

She left the group for a solo career in 1944 with many of her recordings on Capitol and Columbia backed by the orchestra of her future husband, Paul Weston.  During the war, Stafford actively toured with the USO and became a regular on radio beginning in 1945, moving to California in 1946 where she continued hosting The Chesterfield Supper Club for NBC.  Her duets with singer Gordon MacRae sold well, with 1948’s “Say Something Sweet to Your Sweetheart” going gold. 

Stafford was host of a radio program in 1950 for the Voice of America which was broadcast across Eastern Europe as part of the government’s ongoing “cold war” against communism. 

Stafford, along with husband Paul Weston, recorded a number of novelty albums as Jonathan and Darlene Edwards, a failed lounge act.  Weston accompanied Stafford’s off-key singing on an equally off-key piano.  The duo won a Grammy for Best Comedy Album for Jonathan and Darlene Edwards in Paris in 1960.   

A performer whose classically trained voice helped her to earn three stars for music, radio and television on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Stafford retired in 1975 and did not perform publicly again until 1990 for a tribute to Frank Sinatra, whom Stafford and The Pied Pipers had backed on several recordings. 

Paul Weston passed away at age 84 in Santa Monica, California on September 20, 1996; Jo Stafford passed away in Los Angeles, California on July 16, 2008 at age 90.

Listen to a Classic Conversation with Jo Stafford and the Music of The Pied Pipers on The Wink Martindale Show today at 1pm on KWXY Music Radio 92.3FM ● 1340AM ● streaming at kwxy.com and ivoxradio.com