Jo Stafford R.I.P.

[AllenLowe]

she did those country parodies - wasn't she married to Paul Weston (someone may already have mentioned this)?

Edited July 18, 2008 by AllenLowe

[Larry Kart]

wasn't she married to Paul Weston (someone may already have mentioned this)?

Yes, but he cheated on her with Darlene Edwards.

[Christiern]

Now, back to Jo Stafford--has anyone mention her recordings with Red Ingle and His Natural Seven, as "Cinderella G. Stump"? Her twang was prepossessing. I first heard her with the Pied Pipers, played nightly (a theme) over AFN Frankfurt in the late Forties.

Chris, you were stationed in Frankfurt? I was born there, and listening to AFN almost daily fo several years. What year was that theme song played, and in which show?

I wasn't American back then, I was still living in Copenhagen and listening to AFRS, religiously. It was the late Forties, early Fifties, and the theme song was "Dream" (when you're feeling blue...). Don't recall when it came on, but it was obviously a late night show. Another one that I listened to regularly had Charlie Barnet's "Skyliner" as a theme. I went to Iceland in 1954 and got a job with AFRS there, as the station's only civilian dj. Funny, I never even heard of Willis Conover until I met him over here--AFRS was what we listened to in Denmark.

BTW, I have been to Wiesbaden. The U.S. Military sent me to Frankfurt around 1957, to coordinate the printing of a brochure I had designed for NATO. I remember a lively place called Meyer Gustel (spelling is probably wrong) a beer hall with a band in lederhosen.

Sorry, off track, again.

[mikeweil]

Thanks, Chris - as I was born in 1954 this was a bit before I developped my listening habits.

Must have been a funny place - Meyer Gustel - can't recall ever seeing a place like this in Wiesbaden.

[AllenLowe]

"have...you heard...ze Ger-man band...." ****

****old beer hall song; heard in The Producers -

Edited July 18, 2008 by AllenLowe

[mmilovan]

Now, back to Jo Stafford--has anyone mention her recordings with Red Ingle and His Natural Seven, as "Cinderella G. Stump"? Her twang was prepossessing.

Well, Milovan finds that a bit disrespectful (see above). ;)

Well I don't know.

In her last interview she mentioned certain devotion for ballads - you can listen to this inteview here:

http://rapidshare.com/files/130646945/Jo_S...W_interview.mp3

[JSngry]

I mean, I'm in no way a "fan" of Tommy Dorsey, band or trombonist, but objectively, you look at the assemblage of talent that was in that organization during the time that Stafford was associated with it, and you gotta think that after that experience that it would be all but impossible to settle for less than the very best out of yourself or those you associate with musically.

I thought of that while watching her during the band break on that "Gentleman Is A Dope" video, the way she nonchalantly steps back from the mike, kicks her foot at just the right spot, and then steps back in, as if, by god, she could do this in her sleep if she wanted to, and yeah, it's swingin' like a mofo, but why shouldn't it be, right, that's the gig, this is what we do. And you can't get that attitude at that level of inconspicuous but superior strength & confidence unless it's real, unless you've been there and done that often enough to know it to be The Truth.

Thank God for The Truth. It comes damn near everywhere damn near any way, but only in a handful of instances in any of those places and ways. And when it's there, you know it (or else you're a goddamned idiot).

It was there for Jo Stafford.

[mmilovan]

Of course, anyone interested in Cinderella G. Stump can try these links:

Red Ingle and the Natural Seven - For Seventy Mental Reasons

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc4hdNLUarY

Red Ingle and the Natural Seven - Tim-tay-shun (Temptation)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nkl7FjYkX74

(full version with hillarious breakdown "I swear I said Tim..." added on

Capitol CD CDP 7 91638 2)

Red Ingle and the Unnatural Seven - Serutan Yob (Nature Boy)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2nlYK5HBqU

Red Ingle and the Natural Seven - A-You're a Dopey Gal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4OD00_Z3zs

Red Ingle and the Natural Seven - These Durn-Fool Things (These Foolish

Things)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_oVEIJ8Qqg

Red Ingle and the Natural Seven - Git Up Offen the Floor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzd53U5VOXc

Red Ingle and the Natural Seven - Song of Indians

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHlTPUXQngA

and filmed 1960s recreation of Tim-tay-shun

Edited July 18, 2008 by mmilovan

[mmilovan]

Stafford sisters as vocal group first heard in this film:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIK1qChYTjw

The female singers were dubbed by the young Stafford Sisters, one of whom was named Jo...

[mmilovan]

The first time I heard Jo Stafford, I was nine years old. It was a record that had come out that day; "Sugar Foot Stomp," with the original eight Pied Pipers. She had a solo in the middle of it, and I said "Who is THAT!?" I found out soon enough, because very quickly after that, she turned up with Tommy Dorsey; and I got hold of almost everything she did. I just never heard anybody sing that way before. - Johnny Mandel

...

Many years after her retirement, Ms. Stafford looked back happily on her musical life with Weston. “Our talents — his and mine — fit the music of the time,” she said. “And the music fit us. We were very fortunate, because if both of us were starting out today, we’d starve to death!” (from: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/arts/mus...0&emc=eta1)

...

Billie Holiday, who, for the 1946 Esquire Jazz Book, selected Jo as female vocalist for her "dream band" (Perry Como was her pick as boy singer), put it so well, I believe, when she said, of the Stafford timbre, "She sounds like an instrument." Differently from the way in which arranger Nelson Riddle likened Sinatra's voice to a specific instrument, a viola, Billie, in this comment, simply acknowledged the sheer musicality in Jo's tone. (from: http://relativeesoterica.blogspot.com/2008...o-is-that.html)

Edited July 24, 2008 by mmilovan

[Tom Storer]

Check out Stafford and Ella Fitzgerald together: Part 1 and Part 2.

[BERIGAN]

Glad to see so many Stafford fans here! Lots of great clips....

[Kalo]

The lady has long haunted my heart. A truly marvelous, wonderfully musical singer.

R.I.P., Jo.

[Kalo]

Check out Stafford and Ella Fitzgerald together: Part 1 and Part 2.

Wow! Pop music sublimity.

[mmilovan]

If Jo records a song of mine, it's done. I don't have to worry about who records it next or if it's ever recorded again. The sheer musicality of her voice is one of the things that amazes me most about her. - Johnny Mercer on Jo Stafford, as quoted in the liner notes for "Songs That Won The War: The Home Front"

[blind-blake]

Just heard her version of "Haunted Heart" the other day on the radio. What a supernaturally beautiful recording. I'd never heard her before (I don't think).

[Stereojack]

Oh man, that is painful!

I's gotta take a pretty good ear to be so consistently off.

[Dave James]

Auto-Tune is a proprietary audio processor created by Antares Audio Technologies. Auto-Tune uses a phase vocoder to correct pitch in vocal and instrumental performances. It is used to disguise off-key inaccuracies and mistakes, and has allowed singers to perform perfectly tuned vocal tracks without the need of singing in tune. While its main purpose is to slightly bend sung pitches to the nearest true semitone (to the exact pitch of the nearest tone in traditional equal temperament), Auto-Tune can be used as an effect to distort the human voice when pitch is raised or lowered significantly.

[Christiern]

Auto-Tune is a proprietary audio processor created by Antares Audio Technologies. Auto-Tune uses a phase vocoder to correct pitch in vocal and instrumental performances. It is used to disguise off-key inaccuracies and mistakes, and has allowed singers to perform perfectly tuned vocal tracks without the need of singing in tune. While its main purpose is to slightly bend sung pitches to the nearest true semitone (to the exact pitch of the nearest tone in traditional equal temperament), Auto-Tune can be used as an effect to distort the human voice when pitch is raised or lowered significantly.

Jo Stafford did not use any such device. Herbie Hancock, on the other hand, did. He showed me his Vocoder one day when I interviewed him, and offered me a chance to try it out. I didn't, but that would have been a real test of its ability.

[rostasi]

An Auto-Tune and a Vocoder are completely different from each other

(as well as their 60 year difference in invention).

[Teasing the Korean]