Jo Stafford - Solo Career

Solo Career

In 1944, Stafford left the Pied Pipers to go solo, becoming the first solo artist signed by Capitol Records. While still working for Tommy Dorsey, Johnny Mercer said to Stafford, "Some day I'm going to have my own record company, and you're going to record for me." She was signed to the label before it was a year old. Her tenure with the USO, in which she gave many performances for soldiers stationed in the US, led to her acquiring the nickname "G.I. Jo." On returning from the Pacific theater, a veteran told Stafford that the Japanese would play her records on loudspeakers in an attempt to make the US troops homesick enough to surrender. She personally replied to all letters she received from servicemen.

Stafford was a favorite of many servicemen in both World War II and Korea; her recordings received a lot of airplay on Armed Forces Radio and in some military hospitals at lights out. Stafford's involvement with servicemen led to an interest in military history and a sound knowledge of it. Years after the end of World War II, Stafford was a guest at a dinner party with a retired naval officer. When the discussion turned to an action off Mindanao during the war, the officer attempted to correct Stafford, who held to her point. He countered with saying, "Madame, I was there!"; a few days after the party, Stafford received a note of apology from him, saying he had re-read his logs and that she was correct, after all.

Beginning in late 1945, she hosted the Tuesday and Thursday broadcasts of an NBC musical variety radio program The Chesterfield Supper Club. On April 5, 1946, Stafford, Perry Como and the entire radio show cast participated in the first commercial radio program broadcast from an airplane. The initial plan was to use the same type of stand-held microphones used in studio work; when they proved to be a problem, the cast resorted to hand-held ones, which became heavy and difficult to hold due to the plane's cabin pressure. Two flights were made that evening, one for the initial 6:00 pm broadcast and another at 10:00 pm for the West Coast broadcast of the show.

Stafford moved from New York to California in November 1946, but continued to host Chesterfield Supper Club from Hollywood. She also had her own radio show which went on the air later on Tuesday nights when she joined the Supper Club. In 1948, she cut her Supper Club appearances to Tuesdays, with Peggy Lee becoming the host of the Thursday broadcasts. During her time with Chesterfield Supper Club, she revisited some of the folk music she had enjoyed as a child. Paul Weston, who was the conductor of her Supper Club broadcasts, suggested using some of them on the program. With the rediscovery of the folk tunes came an interest in folklore; Stafford established a contest which was awarded to the best collection of American folklore submitted by a college student. The awards were handled by the American Folklore Society.

In 1948, Stafford and Gordon MacRae's version of "Say Something Sweet to Your Sweetheart" sold over a million copies, and in 1949 they repeated their success with "My Happiness". Stafford also recorded "Whispering Hope" with MacRae in the same year. Stafford began hosting a weekly Radio Luxembourg radio program in 1950, recording the voice portions of the shows in Hollywood. She contributed her disk jockey talents without pay. At the time, she was also hosting Club 15 for Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) radio, sharing those duties with Bob Crosby in the same way she did with Perry Como on Chesterfield Supper Club. By 1951, Stafford was also doing weekly radio work for Voice of America (VOA). Collier's magazine published an article about the program in its April 21, 1951 issue titled: "Jo Stafford: Her Songs Upset Joe Stalin"; this earned Stafford the wrath of the Communist newspaper, the Daily Worker. The newspaper published a column critical of Stafford and VOA.

Paul Weston moved from Capitol to Columbia Records, and in 1950, Stafford also left Capitol for Columbia. Content and very comfortable working with him, Stafford had a clause inserted in her contract with the company stating that if Weston left Capitol, she would automatically be released from her obligations to them. In order to join Columbia, Stafford asked for an early release from her contract with Capitol. It was granted on the condition that the singer would record eight more songs for the company before December 15, 1950. Since she was recording for Columbia and also for Capitol to fulfill the company's release terms, Stafford made history by working for two record industry competitors simultaneously. While at Columbia, she was the first recording artist to sell 25 million records for that company.

Weston and Stafford were married in a Roman Catholic ceremony on February 26, 1952. Stafford converted to Catholicism prior to the marriage. The wedding was conducted by Father Joe Kearney, a former guitarist with the Bob Crosby band who left the music business to train as a priest and served as head of the Catholic Labor Institute. The couple left for Europe for their combination honeymoon-business trip; Stafford had an engagement at the London Palladium. The marriage produced two children, Tim, born 1952, and Amy, born 1956.

In the 1950s, she had a string of popular hits with Frankie Laine, six of which charted. Their duet of Hank Williams' "Hey Good Lookin'" made the top ten in 1951. It was also at this time that Stafford scored her best known hits with huge records like "Jambalaya", "Shrimp Boats", "Make Love to Me", and "You Belong to Me".

"You Belong to Me" was Stafford's biggest hit, topping the charts in the United States and the United Kingdom; it was the first song by a female singer to top the UK chart. The record first appeared on US charts on August 1, 1952 and continued there for 24 weeks. In the UK, it went onto the charts on November 14, 1952 as number 12, reaching number one on January 16, 1953 and stayed on the charts for 19 weeks. In a July 1953 interview, Paul Weston said his wife's big hit was really the "B" side of the record. Both he and Columbia Records believed that the "A" side of the single, "Pretty Boy", was going to be the big seller.

Stafford hosted the 15-minute The Jo Stafford Show on CBS-TV from 1954 to 1955, with Weston as her conductor and music arranger. While doing her CBS television show, Stafford was named to the 1955 list of Best Dressed Women by the New York Fashion Academy. She appeared as a guest on NBC's Club Oasis and the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) series The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom, as did many of the popular singers of the late 1950s. In the early 1960s, she hosted a series of television specials called The Jo Stafford Show, centered around music. The shows were produced in England and featured guests, both British and American, such as Ella Fitzgerald, Mel Tormé and Rosemary Clooney.

In 1960, Stafford related there were good and bad points to working closely with her husband. She said that Weston's knowing her so well made it easy for him to arrange music for her, but that it also made it difficult at times, as Weston knew her abilities and would either write or arrange music that was elaborate because he was aware she was capable of performing the song ably. She also said she did not believe she could perform in Broadway musicals, as she believed her voice was not powerful enough for stage work.

Both Stafford and Weston returned to Capitol in 1961. During her second stint at Capitol, Stafford also recorded for Frank Sinatra's label Reprise Records. These albums were released between 1961 and 1964, and were mostly covers of songs she had recorded and performed in the past. Stafford left the label when Sinatra sold it to Warner Brothers. In late 1965, both Stafford and Weston left Capitol again, this time for Dot Records.