page_title: Jonathan and Darlene Edwards
section_title: Media appearances
hierarchical_section_title: Jonathan and Darlene Edwards / Media appearances
caption_attribution_description: Screen capture from A Shower of Stars. Jack Benny was the headliner for this January 9, 1958 television special. The plot ran that he had written a song and with the help of Ed Wynn, was trying to get singers to record it. Benny tried guest star Tommy Sands with no luck, then began his pitch to Jo Stafford and Paul Weston, who also were guests. The Westons didn't want to record the song, but didn't want to hurt Benny's feelings by refusing to, so they decided to "pass" the song to Jonathan and Darlene Edwards, who then demonstrated their "skills" by performing "All the Way" as a proposed "B" side of the single.
context_page_description: Jonathan and Darlene Edwards were a musical comedy double act developed by American conductor and arranger Paul Weston, and his wife, singer Jo Stafford. The routine was conceived in the 1950s, and involved Weston playing songs on the piano in unconventional rhythms, while Stafford sang off-key in a high pitched voice. The couple released five albums and one single as the Edwards, and their 1960 album, Jonathan and Darlene Edwards in Paris won that year's Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album.
  Weston first assumed the role of a bad lounge pianist in the mid-1950s, as a way of entertaining guests at Hollywood parties, but was urged to record an album of songs in the unconventional style after giving an impromptu performance in 1956. At the time, he was working for Columbia Records, and after hearing Weston's rendition of "Stardust" at a sales convention in Key West, Florida, Columbia executives George Avakian and Irving Townsend encouraged him to record an album of similar tracks.
context_section_description: Weston and Stafford appeared on television twice as Jonathan and Darlene Edwards. In 1958, they were guests on Jack Benny's television program Shower of Stars, and in 1960 on The Garry Moore Show. Their appearance on Benny's show involved a sketch in which they played the roles of the Edwards to avoid recording a song Benny had written titled "When You Say I Beg Your Pardon, Then I'll Come Back To You". Their young son, Tim, was in the audience for the program, but as a fan of Benny's, he became very upset with his parents for playing what he perceived to be a trick on him. He refused to go home with his parents after the show, telling them, "Mr. Benny's a nice man and you played a terrible trick on him".
  The Piano Artistry of Jonathan Edwards was followed up with an album of popular music standards, Jonathan and Darlene Edwards in Paris, which was released in 1960 and won that year's Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album. The Academy issued two awards for the category that year; Bob Newhart also received an award for "Spoken Word Comedy" for his album The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back! The Grammy was Stafford's only major award.
  The couple continued to release comedy albums for several years, and in 1979 released a cover of the Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive" as a single, with an Edwards interpretation of Helen Reddy's "I Am Woman" as its "B" side. 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 last release, Darlene Remembers Duke, Jonathan Plays Fats, was issued in 1982. To mark the occasion, an interview with Stafford and Weston—in which they assumed the persona of the Edwards—appeared in the December 1982 edition of Los Angeles Magazine.
  Weston and Stafford gave a second in-character interview in 1983 to Bob Claster, host of Bob Claster's Funny Stuff on Santa Monica's KCRW. In that program, Weston suggested a future project could involve an album of opera standards, while Stafford said she would like to record what she termed "art songs" like "Pale Hands I Loved" and "Indian Love Call".
caption: Jack Benny tries to pitch his song. Pictured here are the Westons, Ed Wynn and Benny
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