- Jo Trivia: Born in Coalinga, in California's San Joaquin Valley, Jo Stafford got her start in music when her family moved to the Los Angeles area and her older sisters got jobs at a local radio station.
- Jo Trivia: Jo had, as a teenager, trained to be a classical opera singer, but she joined her sisters at the radio station in a singing act called The Stafford Sisters. The girls became quite popular...
- ... and she soon had their own radio show. After her sisters' marriages resulted in the act breaking up, Jo joined up with a recently formed eight-man group called The Pied Pipers.
- Jo Trivia: Her early fame came as a vocalist with the big band of Tommy Dorsey, for which she sang both solo and with her group, The Pied Pipers.
- Jo Trivia:Dorsey agreed to having Jo and the Pied Pipers appear on the New York City radio show "The Raleigh-Kool Show"....
- ... The spot went well and they were hired to appear on the show for ten weeks. But the show’s sponsor, who hadn't heard them on the first show, finally did...
- ... and hated them. They were fired, and found themselves stranded in New York City with no job and little money.
- Jo Trivia: In 1944 Jo left the group to go solo, and became one of the most popular singers of the era, especially with servicemen, who nicknamed her "G.I. Jo".
- Jo Trivia: She left Capitol for Columbia Records in 1950, which eventually got her her own TV show, The Jo Stafford Show (1954), on CBS.
- Jo Trivia: Jo ranked #6 among all hit makers of the early 1950s (1950-4), and, despite her brief time as a solo artist, she sold more than 25 million records.
- Jo Trivia: Her career wasn't all serious, though. One day during a recording session with some time left over, she and her husband, as a gag,...
- ... recorded some songs as a truly awful third-rate lounge act called Jonathan and Darlene Edwards-- "Jonathan" played piano, badly, and "Darlene" sang terrible songs off-key,...
- ... and neither character had a clue as to how supremely untalented they were. The songs gained a following, with no one knowing that "Jonathan" and "Darlene" were actually Jo and her husband, Paul Weston...
- ... and in 1960 they released a Jonathan and Darlene album called "Jonathan and Darlene Edwards in Paris", which promptly won a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album...
- ... ironically, the only Grammy Jo would earn in her long and successful career.
- Jo Trivia: In 1953 she was the first female American singer to have a number one hit in the UK with You Belong To Me.
- Jo Trivia: From 1944-1957, she had 83 records on Billboard's pop music charts as a solo artist.
- Jo Trivia: She was awarded 3 Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Recording at 1625 Vine Street; for Radio at 1709 Vine Street; and for Television at 7270 Hollywood Boulevard.
- Jo Trivia: She was a favorite singer of actor William Powell who collected everyone of her albums.
- Jo Trivia: Fellow jazz singer Billie Holiday once said in an interview that Stafford was her favorite music artist because she found her to be very ladylike.
- Jo Trivia: She had two children with second husband Paul Weston. Tim Weston became a musician and record producer, and Amy Weston became a session singer.
- Jo Trivia: Jo went into semi-retirement in 1966, only making occasional television appearances and a few recordings, and left the business entirely in 1975.
- Jo Trivia: When asked why she would not come out of retirement, she replied "For the same reason that Lana Turner is not posing in bathing suits anymore".
- Jo Trivia: She passed away on July 16, 2008, four months away from what would have been her 91st birthday on November 12,...
- ... and was interred with her second husband, Paul Weston, at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.
