BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER FIRST-CLASS MAIL Box 52252 U.S. POSTAGE Atlanta, GA 30355 PAID Atlanta, GA Permit No. 2022 BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER VOLUME XLVII BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1996 our impression of Jo Stafford is that’s she’s a business­ JO STAFFORD INTERVIEW like person with no pretensions. Down-to-earth might be another way to describe our reaction to the conversation. The Background Her voice seems deeper than it was during her singing years; she admits to having Jo Stafford has been in the mu­ been a “dedicated smoker”until sic business since the ’30s, when just ten years ago. Our first she began her professional ca­ question concerned Jo’s life be­ reer with two older sisters. fore she became one of the Pied Pauline and Christine, as one of Pipers. a trio at a time when sister acts (the Andrews Sisters, the The Interview Boswell Sisters) were popular. How did you get into The Stafford Sisters worked in southern California on radio and music? in movie musicals until 1938 I had two older sis­ when Jo became the only girl ters, quite a bit older, singer with a group of seven 11 and 14 years older than I. men who called themselves the They were already in local ra­ Pied Pipers. dio in Long Beach, California and finally came up to Holly­ Jo is a native of California, where her Tennessee bom wood, doing radio in and around Los Angeles. When I parents moved just before she was bom in 1917. Even graduated from high school it was a very natural thing to though neither of her parents had a good singing voice, join them, and we were together for about two or three Jo liked to sing to amuse herself from her earliest years singing in radio and background singing in motion remembrances, and by age ten could read music and pictures. We had quite a successful run of it, and then play the piano. I graduated from them to the Pipers. In the beginning there were eight of us, and we got together on what we The impetus to do these interviews often comes from called a “cattle call,” for a musical called readers. You may have read previously about Jonathan ALEXANDER’S RAGTIME BAND. I guess every and Darlene Edwards in LETTERS TO THE EDI­ singer in Southern California was auditioning; there was TOR, encouraging us to do an in-depth interview with a huge singing chorus. The four Esquires were one of the “Darlene”.... Jo Stafford. We had been in touch with her groups, four boys, and the three Rhythm Kings and we husband, Paul Weston, and their son Tim to arrange to just started fooling around on the set between takes and handle some of their CORJNTHIAN RECORDS, a started singing together and wound up as a group called label established by the Westons featuring Jo’s vocals and Paul’s instmmentals, as well as a combination of the Pied Pipers. both. It was logical, then, that we do a formal interview. BBJ: Your first solo number with Tommy Dorsey was LITTLE MAN WITH A CANDY In setting up the interview, Jo told us that “my husband CIGAR. What kind of song was it? is ill,” and asked that we not mention that illness in the interview. Itwas onlytwo weeks laterthat Paul Weston JS: Strictly a ballad written by Matt Dennis and died. Tom Adair....a very beautiful song.. .and I asked Tom as a special favor if he’d let me record it and Certain impressions are formed in the interview process; VOLUME XLVII BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1996 JS: In a way it was, except by that time I was so used to Paul that I wanted to continue working with him and I had it in my contract that if he left the record company I could go too. When he went to Columbia, very shortly thereafter I went to Columbia, too. BBJ: What are some of your favorite records by you....a trite question, but an important one. JS: Yes, and very difficult for me to pick one. There’s no way I could do that. I love the songs in the GI Joe album, the World War II songs. The music was so great then. The songs were so great in that era, so I love all the songs in there. I like the American folks songs; again, there’s no way I can pick my favorite Jo with the Pied Pipers, plus a skinny recording by me. Jerome Kern’s ALL THE THINGS solo vocalist and a trombone player. YOU ARE is my favorite song, so that’s about as close he said, “It’s yours, Josie!” That’s how easy it was. as I can come to picking a favorite record. BBJ: You went into Capitol Records sometime later. BBJ: How long did you and Paul Weston work together before you made it a permanent union? JS: Very early on. When we were still with Dorsey, Johnny Mercer was a big fan of the Tommy JS: Oh, we were friends for quite a few years before Dorsey band, and whenever he was in New York and we we really got serious about each other. We were playing there or out here at the Palladium, he’d were on opposite coasts most of the time, and we’d see always come to see the band. On one of those visits, he each other two or three times a year if I’d come out to told me and the Pipers that he was forming this record record, or he’d come east to record, but we were on company and if and when we ever left Tommy he’d like opposite coasts for so long. We didn’t really get to to talk to us about coming with the record company as finally know each other in a romantic sense until the late a quartet, and he’d like to have me do some solo work, ’40s when I brought my radio show, at that time coming too. Several months after we left Tommy we did come from New York, out here to California. Paul was the back out here to California and got in touch with John. conductor, so we started seeing each other seriously. We He was as good as his word and signed us to Capitol were good friends for a long period of time before we Records which as a very new company then. It was a were romantically involved. wonderful place to work because the whole thing was run by strictly musicians. BBJ: Was it difficult working with Paul and then being home with him, too? BBJ: There’s a story about Johnny Mercer’s ten­ dency to send roses the day after being unkind to JS: Well, I wasn’t with him that much. He was head musical artists. of A&R at Columbia when we were first mar­ ried, so he was at his work there, and the only time that JS: (Laughs) John was very kind with me. I never our careers were together was when I would have a was on the bad end of one of those tirades, but record date and we would be recording, because I almost one night it looked as if it was going to come to an end a hundred percent recorded with him. He had his work and I was going to be one of his victims and before he got and was gone most of the day just like anybody else. really good and started, I just told him: “John, I don’t want to receive a dozen red roses tomorrow morning.” BBJ: There was the Jonathan and Darlene period That stopped him and he never went on with it. when you and Paul purposely recorded some material that was off-key and off-tempo. There are still BBJ: When you left Capitol and moved to Columbia, some people who, on first hearing, wonder what’s was it an emotional move? funny. VOLUME XLVII BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1996 JS: That was a good parlor trick, to put it on with TER, May-June, 1995) My son has his own record- other records and have this sound start coming producing company. He’s just finished producing an out. People would just look at each other, and they album. They’re both busy little bees. didn’t know whether to say anything or not, and some listeners were perfectly happy with it. BBJ: Amy did rock before she began singing with a Big Band. BBJ: How did the Jonathan and Darlene thing come about? JS: She can do both ofthem; that’s one thing I could never do, I could never switch from one to the JS : For years at friend’s houses or little get-togethers, other, but she can do the rock style stuff well, but she Paul had this silly version of STARDUST that tends to like ’40s type music better. The stuff that Amy he used to do just for laughs. There was a Columbia does with Bill Elliott are my charts. Record convention down in Key West, and one night after the meetings they all went into a little bar there, and BBJ: What are your thoughts about the current the piano player in the bar was pretty much a copy of condition of music? Jonathan Edwards. After the piano player packed up and left, Paul sat down and played that goofy version of JS: I think it’s worse than it’s ever been.