Retirement
Because she disliked the continuing travel for television appearances that took her away from her two children and saying she no longer found it fun, Stafford went into semi-retirement in the mid 1960s, retiring completely from the music business in 1975. Except for the Jonathan and Darlene Edwards material and a recording of her favorite "Whispering Hope" with her daughter Amy, Stafford did not perform again until 1990, at a ceremony honoring Frank Sinatra. The Westons then devoted more of their time to Share Inc., a charity that aids those with developmental disabilities; the couple had been active in the organization for many years. Concord Records attempted to get Stafford to change her mind and come out of retirement, but she remained adamant.
Stafford and Weston began work on an autobiography in 1979. Titled The Ducks Are Drowning the book was to focus primarily on the early part of their careers, with anecdotes and stories from that era. But after putting together an outline and working on a rough draft they abandoned the project the following year because of a lack of interest from publishers. Their manuscript was later edited by Keith Pawlak, curator of the University of Arizona's jazz and popular music archive, and published in 2012 as Song of the Open Road: An Autobiography and Other Writings.
Stafford won a breach-of-contract lawsuit against her former record label, Columbia, in the early 1990s. Due to a clause in her contract regarding the payment of royalties, she secured the rights to all of the recordings she made with the company, including those made as Jonathan and Darlene Edwards. Following the lawsuit, Stafford, along with son Tim, reactivated the Corinthian Records label, which began life as a religious label that the devout Paul Weston had started. With Paul Weston's help, she compiled a pair of Best of Jonathan and Darlene albums, which were released in 1993.
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