LOS ANGELES — Jo Stafford, a honey-voiced band singer who starred on radio and television and sold more than 25 million records with her ballads and folk songs, has died. She was 90.
Stafford died of congestive heart failure Wednesday at her Century City home, her son, Tim Weston of Topanga, said Friday.
Stafford had 26 charted singles and nearly a dozen top 10 hits, her son said.
Stafford’s records of “I’ll Walk Alone,” “I’ll Be Seeing You,” “I Don’t Want to Walk Without You” and other sentimental songs struck the hearts of servicemen far from home in World War II and the Korean War. They referred to her as “GI Jo.”
Stafford appeared before studio audiences in radio and TV during the 1940s and 1950s. She alternated with Perry Como on a nightly 15-minute radio show in 1944, guest starred on many TV variety shows and had her own series, “The Jo Stafford Show,” in 1955 and 1956.
She recorded more than 800 songs during a career that included ballads, folk, Scottish, country and novelty. She even tried comedy. She and her second husband, Paul Weston, recorded an album of numbers on which she sang painfully off-key and he played miserable piano. A second comedy album won them a Grammy in 1960.
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