page_title: Jo Stafford
section_title: The Pied Pipers
hierarchical_section_title: Jo Stafford / The Pied Pipers
caption_attribution_description: Photo of the vocal group The Pied Pipers. From left-Charles Lowry, Jo Stafford, Clark Yocum, and John Huddleston.
context_page_description: Jo Elizabeth Stafford was an American traditional pop music singer and occasional actress, whose career spanned five decades from the late 1930s to the early 1980s. Admired for the purity of her voice, she originally underwent classical training to become an opera singer before following a career in popular music, and by 1955 had achieved more worldwide record sales than any other female artist. Her 1952 song "You Belong to Me" topped the charts in the United States and United Kingdom, the record becoming the first by a female artist to reach number one on the UK Singles Chart.
  Born in remote oil rich Coalinga, California, near Bakersfield in the San Joaquin Valley, Stafford made her first musical appearance at age 12. While still at high school, she joined her two older sisters to form a vocal trio named the Stafford Sisters, who found moderate success on radio and in film. In 1938, while the sisters were part of the cast of Twentieth Century Fox's production of Alexander's Ragtime Band, Stafford met the future members of the Pied Pipers and became the group's lead singer. Bandleader Tommy Dorsey hired them in 1939 to perform back-up vocals for his orchestra.
context_section_description: By 1938, the Staffords were involved with Twentieth Century Fox's production of Alexander's Ragtime Band. The studio brought in many vocal groups to work on the film, including the Four Esquires, the Rhythm Kings, and the King Sisters, who began to sing and socialized between takes. The Stafford Sisters, the Four Esquires and the Rhythm Kings became a new vocal group called the Pied Pipers. Stafford later said, "We started singing together just for fun, and these sessions led to the formation of an eight-voice singing group that we christened 'The Pied Pipers'". The group consisted of eight members, including Stafford—John Huddleston, Hal Hooper, Chuck Lowry, Bud Hervey, George Tait, Woody Newbury, and Dick Whittinghill.
  As the Pied Pipers, they worked on local radio and movie soundtracks. When Alyce and Yvonne King threw a party for their boyfriends' visit to Los Angeles, the group was invited to perform. The King Sisters' boyfriends were Tommy Dorsey's arrangers Axel Stordahl and Paul Weston, who became interested in the group. Weston said the group's vocals were unique for its time and that their vocal arrangements were much like those for orchestral instruments.
  Weston persuaded Dorsey to audition the group in 1938, and the eight drove together to New York City. Dorsey liked them and signed them for 10 weeks. After their second broadcast, the sponsor visiting from overseas heard the group sing "Hold Tight (Want Some Seafood Mama)". Until this point, the sponsor knew only that he was paying for Dorsey's program and that its ratings were very good; transcription discs mailed to him by his advertising agency always arrived broken. He thought that the performance was terrible, and pressured the advertising agency representing his brand to fire the group. They stayed in New York for several months, landing one job that paid them $3.60 each, and they recorded some material for RCA Victor Records. Weston later said that Stordahl and he felt responsibility for the group, since Weston had arranged their audition with Dorsey. After six months in New York and with no work there for them, the Pied Pipers returned to Los Angeles, where four of their members left the group to seek regular employment. Shortly afterwards, Stafford received a telephone call from Dorsey, who told her he wished to hire the group, but wanted only four of them, including Stafford. After she agreed to the offer, the remaining Pied Pipers—Stafford, Huddleston, Lowry, and Wilson—traveled to Chicago in 1939. The decision led to success for the group, especially Stafford, who featured in both collective and solo performances with Dorsey's orchestra.
  When Frank Sinatra joined the Dorsey band, the Pied Pipers provided backing vocals for his recordings. Their version of "I'll Never Smile Again" topped the Billboard Chart for 12 weeks in 1940 and helped to establish Sinatra as a singer. Stafford, Sinatra, and the Pied Pipers toured extensively with Dorsey during their three years as part of his orchestra, giving concerts at venues across the United States. Stafford made her first solo recording—"Little Man with a Candy Cigar"—in 1941, after Dorsey agreed to her request to record solo. Her public debut as a soloist with the band occurred at New York's Hotel Astor in May 1942. Bill Davidson of Collier's  reported in 1951 that because Stafford weighed in excess of 180 lb, Dorsey was reluctant to give her a leading vocal role in his orchestra, believing she was not sufficiently glamorous for the part. However, Peter Levinson's 2005 biography of Dorsey offers a different account. Stafford recalls that she was overweight, but Dorsey did not try hiding her because of it.
  In November 1942, the Pied Pipers had a disagreement with Dorsey when he fired Clark Yocum, a guitarist and vocalist who had replaced Billy Wilson in the lineup, when he mistakenly gave the bandleader misdirections at a railroad station in Portland, Oregon. The remaining three members then quit in an act of solidarity. At the time, the number-one song in the United States was "There Are Such Things" by 
caption: The Pied Pipers in 1944: Pictured here are Charles Lowry, Jo Stafford, Clark Yocum, and John Huddleston,
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