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Proper Way To Listen To Classical Music
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Jo Stafford (1917- 2008) was a pop music singer whose career spanned five decades. Admired for the purity of her voice, she originally underwent classical training to become an opera singer before following a career in pop music.
Born in Coalinga, California, she made her first musical appearance at age twelve. In 1938 she met the future members of The Pied Pipers and became the group’s lead singer. Tommy Dorsey hired them in 1939 to perform backup vocals for his band.
In addition to her recordings with the Pied Pipers, Stafford featured in solo performances for Dorsey. After leaving the group in 1944, she recorded a series of pop standards. Her work with the USO giving concerts for soldiers during World War II earned her the nickname “G.I. Jo”.
Jo’s second marriage was to Paul Weston. She and Paul developed a comedy routine in which they assumed the identity of an incompetent lounge act named Jonathan and Darlene Edwards. The act proved popular when the couple released an album in 1957. That disk won Stafford her only Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album and was the first commercially successful parody album. She enjoyed a brief resurgence in popularity in the late 1970’s when she recorded a cover of the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive” as Darlene Edwards. (Drumbo was not amused when I posted it a few weeks ago.)