Radio … and Me - 26

There are few singers and even fewer songs that can take me back to a particular spot in my off-and-on radio career.
The singer is Jo Stafford, and the SINGLE song is … to be unveiled later.

She came from the 1940s and 50s, an era with plenty of great singers: Rosemary Clooney, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Shore, Doris Day, to name but a few.
Each of these performers had her own style: Clooney 'would hit every note right in the centre,' Fitzgerald had the famous ‘scat’ element that she could bring in at any time (even when she forgot the lyrics!), Shore's style was totally ‘homespun,’ while Day's was a lot more ‘uptown.’
Jo Stafford's voice was different: more 'mysterious,' (perhaps because she sounded slightly ‘off-mic’ most of the time).
I listened to her songs -- and many other great songs -- on the radio, but was introduced to the beauty of her work during my first radio job.
I was a young news reader at CJCB in Sydney, working with another young announcer on the evening shift. Following the news at 1 a.m., he had to read a short ‘sign-off’ (Yes, Dear Reader, in the mid-1960s, nearly all radio stations in the Maritimes were silent during the nighttime hours.), wish everyone, “Good night,” and play:
-- The Night Watch, by Jo Stafford.
Then, he would shut down the AM-1270, FM-94.9 and the CJCX shortwave-6110 (on the 49-metre band) transmitters, and we would turn off the lights, clock out, lock the door and go home.
At that time of night, I found that song to be especially ‘haunting,’ almost like looking up at the stars on a clear night.
Here is some of the lyrics that impressed me so much:

Sleep, sleep, in peace and rest,
Don't be afraid of the darkness.
All's well, for over the land and the sea,
God's keeping the night watch for you and for me.

The song was recorded at Columbia Records and featured the orchestra by husband, Paul Weston. (This fact is important, Dear Reader, as we see later.)
During her career (which spanned five decades from the late 1930s to the early 1980s), she recorded hundreds of songs, many of which became hits:
Wikipedia lists 12 of her COMPILATION albums, alone!
Her biggest hits included:
-- You Belong To Me (1952), and
-- Shrimp Boats.
Here are some of my favourite songs from her collection:
-- Long Ago and Far Away - (1944),
-- It's Almost Tomorrow,
-- All The Things You Are, , and
-- But Not For Me - (1956).
Dear Reader, you can listen to all these Jo Stafford songs and many more -- and perhaps find YOUR favourite songs! -- by doing a Google / YouTube search.
Later, she showed her sense of fun and versatility, performing comedy numbers, such as:
-- Tim-Tay-Shun - with Red Ingle (hilarious video).
Even later, she teamed up with husband Paul Weston for a lounge act – which was rather … different. Evidently, they had been bored with being constantly asked to play at parties and devised their peculiar style as a rebuttal! 'Ya gotta sing well to sing off key' (please notice that they were both READING the music), and he provided so many piano trills and extra stylings that one album photo shows two right hands on the keyboard!
And so, ladies and gentlemen, (if you're ready) for your listening pleasure (!), Darlene and Jonathan Edwards sing:
-- The Last Time I Saw Paris,
-- Silvery Moon,
and even an unforgettable version of the disco smash by the Bee Gees: -- Stayin' Alive!
IRONY ALERT: In 1961, Jo Stafford won her ONLY Grammy Award for the album, 'Jonathan and Darlene Edwards in Paris.'
She died in 2008.