Jo Stafford circa 1945 color added 2015
by David Lee Guss
Title
Jo Stafford circa 1945 color added 2015
Artist
David Lee Guss
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
"Jo Elizabeth Stafford (November 12, 1917 - July 16, 2008) was an American traditional pop music singer and occasional actress, whose career spanned five decades from the late 1930s to the early 1980s. Admired for the purity of her voice, she originally underwent classical training to become an opera singer before following a career in popular music, and by 1955 had achieved more worldwide record sales than any other female artist. Her 1952 song 'You Belong to Me' topped the charts in the United States and United Kingdom, the record becoming the first by a female artist to reach number one on the U.K. Singles Chart.
Born in Coalinga, California, Stafford made her first musical appearance at age twelve. While still at high school she joined her two older sisters to form a vocal trio named The Stafford Sisters, who found moderate success on radio and in film. In 1938, while the sisters were part of the cast of Twentieth Century Fox's production of Alexander's Ragtime Band, Stafford met the future members of The Pied Pipers and became the group's lead singer. Bandleader Tommy Dorsey hired them in 1939 to perform back-up vocals for his orchestra.
In addition to her recordings with the Pied Pipers, Stafford featured in solo performances for Dorsey.
Stafford was admired by critics and the listening public for the purity of her voice, and was considered one of the most versatile vocalists of her era. Peter Levinson said that she was a coloratura soprano, whose operatic training allowed her to sing a natural falsetto. Her style encompassed a number of genres, including big band, ballads, jazz, folk and comedy. The music critic Terry Teachout described her as 'rhythmically fluid without ever sounding self-consciously jazzy,' while Rosemary Clooney said of her, 'The voice says it all: beautiful, pure, straightforward, no artifice, matchless intonation, instantly recognizable. Those things describe the woman too.'
Writing for the New York Sun, Will Friedwald described her 1947 interpretation of 'Haunted Heart' as 'effective because it's so subtle, because Stafford holds something back and doesn't shove her emotion in the listener's face.' Nancy Franklin described Stafford's version of the folk song 'He's Gone Away' as 'wistful and tender, as if she had picked up a piece of clothing once worn by a loved one and begun singing.' Frank Sinatra said, /It was a joy to sit on the bandstand and listen to he./ The singer Judy Collins has cited Stafford's folk recordings as an influence on her own."
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October 10th, 2016
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