Jo Stafford - Comedy Performances

Comedy Performances

Stafford briefly performed comedy under the name "Cinderella G. Stump" with Red Ingle and the Natural Seven. She recorded a mock hillbilly version of Temptation, which she pronounced "Tim-tayshun", in 1947. Cinderella G. Stump was born when she met Ingle at a recording studio and he told her his female vocalist had been unable to make his recording session. Stafford asked if she could help, and gave an impromptu performance. It was not known initially that it was her voice on the record. Because she had done it in fun on the spur of the moment and accepted standard scale pay, Stafford waived all royalties from the record. Stafford, along with Ingle and Weston, made a personal appearance tour in 1949, turning herself into Cinderella G. Stump to perform the song. Stafford and Ingle performed the song on network television in 1960 for Startime.

Throughout the 1950s, Stafford and Paul Weston would entertain guests at parties by putting on a skit in which they assumed the identities of a bad lounge act. Stafford would sing off-key in a high pitched voice; Weston played an untuned piano off key and with bizarre rhythms. Weston began the act at a Columbia Records sales convention, "filling time" with his impression of a dreadful lounge pianist. His audience was very appreciative and continued to ask for more even after the convention was over. Columbia Records executive George Avakian named Weston's character Jonathan Edwards, for the 18th century Calvinist preacher. He asked Weston to record an album under this alias. As Weston thought, he worried that he might not be able to come up with enough material for an entire album alone. He asked his wife to join the project and Stafford then became Darlene Edwards, the off-key vocalist.

Finding that she had time left over following a 1957 recording session, Stafford, as a gag, recorded a track as Darlene Edwards. At the time, the head of Columbia's artists and repertoire department was Mitch Miller, who had been selecting songs like "Underneath the Overpass" and similar novelty-type songs for Stafford to record. Because she did not agree with Miller's choices for her, Stafford and her studio musicians often recorded their own renditions of the music, performing the songs according to the way they felt about them. This is how the Darlene Edwards character was born. Those who heard bootlegs of the recording responded positively, and later that year, Stafford and Weston recorded an entire album of songs as Jonathan and Darlene, entitled The Piano Artistry of Jonathan Edwards. As a publicity stunt, Stafford and Weston claimed that the Edwardses were a New Jersey lounge act that they had discovered, and denied any personal connection.

The ruse triggered a national sensation as the public tried to identify the brazenly off-key singer and the piano player of dubious ability. Time magazine noted that some people believed the performers were Margaret and Harry Truman. The 1957 Time article exposed that they were in fact Weston and Stafford.

The album was followed up with a "pop standards" album, on which the pair intentionally butchered popular music. It was a commercial and critical success and proved to be the first commercially successful musical parody album, laying the groundwork for the careers of later full time musical parodists such as Mrs. Miller, who was briefly famous for her off-key rendition of then-popular songs, and "Weird Al" Yankovic. In 1958, the Westons brought the pair to the television screen for a Jack Benny Shower of Stars and to The Garry Moore Show in 1960.

They continued recording Jonathan and Darlene albums, with their 1960 album, Jonathan and Darlene Edwards in Paris, winning that year's Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album. In a rare move, the Academy decided to issue two awards for the category that year; Bob Newhart also received an award for "Spoken Word Comedy." It was the only major award that Stafford ever won.

The couple continued to release the albums for several years, and in 1979 released a cover of The Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive" backed with "I Am Woman". The same year also saw a brief resurgence in the popularity of Jonathan and Darlene albums when their cover of "Carioca" was featured as the opening and closing theme to The Kentucky Fried Movie. Their 1962 album, Sing Along With Jonathan and Darlene Edwards, was blamed by Mitch Miller for putting an end to his sing-along television show and record albums. Their last release, Darlene Remembers Duke, Jonathan Plays Fats, was issued in 1982.