AI made her a little bigger than she was:
Posted on 07/17/2008 11:49:45 AM PDT by Borges
Jo Stafford, who died yesterday, is mostly forgotten now, save by those who were young a half-century ago, but back then she was one of the most popular singers in America, a wholesome beauty with a smooth, perfectly produced voice who sold millions and millions of records. Some of them were silly novelties, others bland period ballads, but when she had a good song to sing, nobody sang it better.
Stafford dealt in reassurance, a commodity much appreciated during World War II and in the Age of Anxiety that followed it, which may explain why she is not so nearly well remembered as Frank Sinatra (with whom she sang in Tommy Dorsey's band) or the hotter, sexier canaries of the Fifties. Her tasteful singing was rhythmically fluid without ever sounding self-consciously "jazzy," and her warm mezzo-soprano voice had a maternal quality that eased the troubled heart, though it didn't do much for the critics of the day. "I never made it with the critics," she once told Gene Lees. "I think what the critics didn't like was that it was simply singing."
Stafford went into semi-retirement in 1966. By then most of her records were out of print, and when I wrote a piece for Mirabella in 1994 occasioned by the release of a three-CD box set of her old Columbia recordings, she was very much a figure of the past. That hasn't changed. Most of the collections of her singles that are currently available are junky hit-oriented anthologies that give no sense of what she was like at her best. Fortunately Corinthian, her own label, put out two excellent CDs, Big Band Sound and Jo + Jazz, in which she sings blue-chip standards accompanied by some of the greatest jazz and pop instrumentalists of the Swing Era. Jazz musicians loved Stafford's voice and knew her worth--Lester Young was one of her biggest fans--and were always glad to play for her.
Stafford was only a vague memory of my childhood when a septuagenarian friend of mine played me a Columbia 78 of her version of "Early Autumn" a decade and a half ago. (It's on Big Band Sound, and you can also download it from iTunes.) The record, arranged by her beloved husband Paul Weston, couldn't be simpler. Stafford is accompanied by a clarinet choir and a soft-spoken rhythm section, and she sings Johnny Mercer's haunting lyric in the most direct and unmannered way imaginable:
There's a dance pavilion in the rain All shuttered down A winding country lane All russet brown A frosty window pane Shows me a town grown lonely.
That deceptively uncomplicated-sounding performance hit me with the force of revelation. All at once I knew that good old Jo Stafford was a great artist, and I resolved to spread the word about her artistry in any way I possibly could. A couple of years later I wrote about her in Mirabella, and after that I made a point of mentioning Stafford whenever I had occasion to write about golden-age popular song and its interpreters, but never again did I have occasion to write a full-length piece about her. I wish I had, and I wish I'd sent it to her while she was still alive. Perhaps she would have enjoyed knowing that her quiet, unpretentious art was still giving pleasure long after her fame had faded.
(And I’m only in my early 40s — I just have learned that the “talent” nowadays rarely compares to the classics.)
I guess you’re not impressed with Kellie Pickler?
...and going around to the local FD and PD early in the AM (before signon) to glean their blotters for the local news.
...and a little while later, hoping the transmitter remote control would bring ‘er up one more time.
...and wondering where the hell the night jock left the record or the cart of the National Anthem.
I like the Duprees but here is Joe singing it:
She can knock you out with her beautiful voice.
Actually, I liked her a lot when she was on A.I. (coincidentally, the only season I ever watched the show). Thought she had a nice voice. I have no idea what she's been up to since then.
Never said that there wasn't any talent nowadays. Just that I think it's rare.
You're not suggesting that Kellie Pickler is in the same league as Ella Fitzgerald, Karen Carpenter, and Jo Stafford, are you??
AI made her a little bigger than she was:
Night jock? Oh you had made the big time! A station that a night shift. For us peons it was sunrise to sunset. That meant a MUCH longer work day on the Fourth of July than Christmas day.
We didn’t have a transmitter remote control, we had a transmitter, sitting in the back room right behind the control room. You had to walk back there to read the meters.
Usually in our setting the sign on guy was the sign off guy so you didn’t have to worry about where things were. They were right where you had left them!
I know these experiences are aren’t peculiar to the AM radio days, but it sure was a world of its own, wasn’t it? I had a friend who wanted to write a book about his life in radio. His title would be “Tight board, no drifter”.
I also spent a good deal of my early married life in the funeral home business. That’s another one that has really changed!
I grew upn listening to her. She was one of my father’s favorites. He had an LP of Scottish Ballads sung by her, great stuff. I think he bought it when he lived in England.
She was a great singer. God Rest Her soul.
sw
She was my Mom’s favorite as well.
No other love
My mom called rear deja vue!
“I don’t like spiders and snakes and that ain’t what it takes to love me, like I want to be loved by you.”
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Good post potlatch!
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