I must be channeling my late father these past couple of weeks--during the pandemic lockdown I redid my record collection, and as I was sorting through them, I found an album by this week's artist (whom I had discovered like previous Friday Night Jukebox stalwarts Johnny Mathis and Vic Damone on the 4-CD set Sentimental Journey) among the records my father had given me shortly before his death. And as an added bonus, it even had this week's tune on it....
Jo Stafford, who, outside of this week's song I was completely unfamiliar with prior to my weekly half-assed research, turned out to have actually had quite an interesting and varied career. Born in Coalinga, California in 1917, Stafford began performing at the age of twelve, joined her sisters' trio The Stafford Sisters in her late teens, joined the Pied Pipers in the late 30's, and eventually became part of big band leader Tommy Dorsey's orchestra, performing background vocals with the likes of Frank Sinatra. As time wore on, Stafford began recording as a solo artist and continued to meet with both critical and commercial success. In the early sixties, she and her second husband, Paul Weston, formed a parody duo, Jonathan and Darlene Edwards, for which they went on to win a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album in 1961. Stafford continued performing into the 1980's before retiring. For her career, Stafford released 88 singles and some 110 albums (a good many of which are compilations). Ms. Stafford has three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, appeared in movies, and had several different TV shows (which mostly featured her singing). She passed away in 2008.
Fun Fact: Jo Stafford is the first woman to have a #1 hit on the U.K. Singles chart--which appropriately enough, was this week's featured song.
"You Belong to Me" was recorded by numerous artists after its release in 1952, but Jo Stafford's version was the most popular, reaching #1 in both the United States and (as noted above) Great Britain. She originally released it only as a single, and it was not on one of her albums until appearing (not surprisingly) on a compilation album, The Hits of Jo Stafford, in 1964.
"You Belong to Me" comes from an era when musicians spent years honing their craft (and that's not an indictment of today's musicians, just a standard from another era), and it's easy to see how fifteen years of singing professionally made Jo Stafford's voice into the perfect instrument for carrying the sentiments of this song into our hearts and minds. There's a confidence and a smoothness to her singing that allows her sultry performance to stand above the usual fare, and the orchestra behind her hits all the right notes (in more ways than one). This one's not for everyone--it's a ballad from another time in America's history (it was originally written with a WWII soldier in mind, traveling with the troops), but if you're a fan of female vocalists this one is about as good as it gets.
Lyric Sheet: "See the pyramids along the Nile/Watch the sun rise on a tropic isle/Just remember, darling, all the while/You belong to me..."
Enjoy:
Republican = Racist
Peace,
emaycee
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