The Jo Stafford Holiday Collection

Jo Stafford and Paul Weston

Considering my affinity for Jo Stafford's voice, it's surprising that her seasonal output has never made an appearance here.

I suppose that's because her holiday LPs are well known. Even so, I think it's time we presented the three of them - along with a surprising number of orphan tracks that have appeared hither and yon through the years.

Let's start with those 16 assorted numbers, which take us back to near the beginning of Jo's career. Then we'll get to her Happy Holiday, Ski Trails and The Joyful Season LPs.

Miscellaneous Christmas Tracks

Jo Stafford and the Pied Pipers

Stafford joined the Tommy Dorsey band in 1939 as the lead singer of the Pied Pipers, a popular and influential group. Their sole song with a seasonal connotation would seem to be "Winter Weather," a very good piece by Ted Shapiro that was popular in 1942. Jo would return to the song on her 1955 Happy Holiday LP.

Capitol News, December 1948

Stafford went solo in 1944, and soon was with the new label Capitol, whose music director was Paul Weston - formerly of the Dorsey band - whom she would marry in 1952. But it wasn't until 1946 that they began recording seasonal fare. That year, the label issued her coupling of "Silent Night" and "White Christmas" with the Lyn Murray Singers and Weston's orchestra. The Murray group had done a good Christmas album for Columbia in 1942. It's available here, newly remastered.

Then it took until 1948 for something that could be called a follow-up - the setting of the "Ave Maria" to a Schubert melody, oddly coupled with the musty "Smilin' Through" (not included here).

Stafford made up for the lack of holiday material the next year with several releases.

We start with her early album Jo Stafford Sings American Folk Songs, where we find the first of her three recordings of "I Wonder as I Wander," which did have a folk origin but was turned into the song we know by John Jacob Niles. Regardless of its origin, it is a haunting work both melodically and lyrically that Stafford and Weston handle beautifully.

Also that year, Capitol paired Jo with Gordon MacRae in a perfect partnership that has been featured on this blog several times - including their two Christmas medleys that originally came out on a 12-inch 78.

The final 1949 release was a beautiful version of "Gesù bambino," written by Pietro Yon in 1917 and later adapted by Frederick Martens. This was later added to the Stafford-MacRae medleys that had been issued on 78 to make the EP depicted above.

The next year, Jo was featured on CBS' Carnation Contented Hour radio show. (Carnation made canned milk, which it boasted came "from contented cows.") Jo sings "It's a Marshmallow World," a fun number that was new that year. Peter De Rose and Carl Sigman were the authors.

In 1952, Jo's new label Columbia paired her with a singer much different from MacRae, but just as simpatico - Frankie Laine. He and Stafford had a notable rapport that is immediately apparent in their superb singing on "Christmas Roses," a charming country-style song by the team of Hy Zaret, Alex Kramer and Joan Whitney.

Jo with Frankie Laine

The next year, her holiday offering was the excellent Sammy Cahn-David Holt song "Christmas Blues," also recorded by Dino and newly popular in recent years with recordings by the likes of Bob Dylan.

Stafford and Weston kept themselves busy with her two seasonal LPs for Columbia in 1955 and 1956, which are covered below. But one recording apparently made in 1955 was not included on those albums. It was a version of "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" that was not issued until a 1968 LP otherwise consisting of material from Jo's holiday LPs. This is with an unidentified organist. Thanks to Ernie Haynes, who alerted me to this number!

From there, we jump ahead to 1962 when another version of "I Wonder as I Wander" was included on her stereo remake of Jo Stafford Sings American Folk Songs, with the same arrangements as the first go-round. She must have liked the song - it also ended up on the Winter Weather LP below.

Stafford made a quick stop-over on the Reprise label for a version of "O Little Town of Bethlehem" that appeared on a Christmas compilation in 1963.

The next year Jo recorded a spot for the Marine Corps Reserve's "Toys for Tots" drive, doing a nice job with the tune and with the messaging as well. Jack Marshall conducted. This was presumably made during the sessions for The Joyful Season, covered below.

Stafford largely retired in the mid-60s, but we do have one more item, here presented out of chronological order because it is a New Year's song - "Auld Lang Syne," taken from Jo's 1956 LP Songs of Scotland.

LINK to miscellaneous Christmas tracks

Happy Holiday

Happy Holiday of 1955 is an entirely pleasing album, but doesn't display the generosity of the season, being short, repeating material that had appeared elsewhere - in new versions - and featuring two numbers that don't include the artist named on the cover.

What it does include are a few appearances by Tim Weston, the three-year-old son of Jo and Paul, who also shows up in the cover photo, bundled up for a winter storm of soap flakes and styrofoam. Jo made do without a coat.

As for the LP, it presents two versions of Irving Berlin's "Happy Holiday," which together last a minute and a half, and remakes of "Winter Weather," "I Wonder as I Wander" and "Silent Night." New to Jo's recorded repertoire were "The Christmas Song," "Let It Snow! (etc.)," "Toyland" and "Winter Wonderland." There also was a recitation of "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" with Weston's musical backing.

Jo must have been out of the room for two numbers: "O Little Town of Bethlehem" is performed by an unidentified children's choir and "The March of the Toys" by Weston's orchestra.

All of this is not unpleasant, but, gee, let's hear more of Jo! 

LINK to Happy Holiday

Ski Trails

This parsimonious approach continued the following year with Ski Trails, which even repeated two songs from Happy Holiday - "Let It Snow (etc.)" and "Winter Wonderland." Meanwhile, the Norman Luboff Choir showed up with forceful renditions of "Winter Song," which seems to be an old choral item from Dartmouth College (Weston was a graduate), and "The Whiffenpoof Song" from Yale. Presumably Luboff's forces were portraying hearty fraternity fellows at an après-ski party.

For Stafford, the only remake seems to be "By the Fireside" (aka "In the Gloaming"), which she had recorded years before with Gordon MacRae. New to her recorded repertoire were "Baby, It's Cold Outside," "Moonlight in Vermont" (with lyrics adjusted to make it more wintery), "It Happened in Sun Valley" (from Glenn Miller's film Sun Valley Serenade), "I've Got Me Love to Keep Me Warm," "The Nearness of You," "June in January" and "Sleigh Ride."

So quite a few new items, just not as many as there could have been.

LINK to Ski Trails

The Joyful Season

So long as I am picking nits, let me start with the title - The Joyful Season really ought to be The Joyous Season, "joyful" relating to people and "joyous" to things.

But the important point to mention is that this 1964 LP features "the Voices of Jo Stafford," signifying that she sings in harmony with herself throughout the album, à la Mary Ford or Patti Page.

Jack Marshall

Together with the sparse arrangements of Jack Marshall, this gives the LP an aura that I have previously likened to an aluminum Christmas tree.

But that is too harsh. The album offers much to enjoy.

Again, there are songs Jo had assayed previously - that's hard to avoid with Christmas material. But there are new things under the tree as well - "Deck the Hall," "Silver Bells," "Little Drummer Boy" and "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town." 

Most notable are two new songs that Paul Weston wrote with Alan Bergman and Marilyn Keith Bergman - "Merry Christmas" and "Christmas Is the Season." Not classics, but worth hearing.

So overall, the set is much to be preferred to an aluminum Christmas tree, even one with a rotating color wheel.

LINK to The Joyful Season