Jo Stafford ...
One of the most technically gifted and popular vocalists of the immediate postwar period, Jo Stafford effortlessly walked the line between breezy pop and the more serious art of post-big-band jazz singing. With the help of her husband, top-flight arranger and Capitol A&R director Paul Weston , Stafford recorded throughout the '40s and '50s for Capitol and Columbia. She also contributed (with Weston ) to one of the best pop novelty acts of the period, a hilariously inept and off-key satire that saw the couple billed as Jonathan & Darlene Edwards . Born near Fresno, CA, Stafford sang from an early age and was classically trained, though she later joined her sisters in a country-tinged act (associated for a time with Joe "Country" Washburne ). At the age of just 17, she became the first female voice in the seven-man vocal act known as the Pied Pipers . Soon after the group joined the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra in 1939, however, it was pruned