Jim Stafford
Encyclopedia
James Wayne "Jim" Stafford (born January 16, 1944, Eloise, Florida
) is an American
comedian
, musician
, and singer-songwriter
, prominent in the 1970s. Stafford is self-taught on guitar
, fiddle
, piano
, banjo
, organ
and harmonica
.
Stafford was raised in Winter Haven
, Florida. In high school, he played in a band along with friends Bobby Braddock
, Kent LaVoie (also known as Lobo
) and Gram Parsons
(of the Byrds).
hit
was "Swamp Witch", produced by Lobo, which cracked the U.S. Top 40 in July 1973. By early 1974 he had charted his biggest hit, "Spiders and Snakes", which peaked at #3 on the Billboard
Hot 100
that March. It sold over two million copies, and was awarded a gold disc
by the R.I.A.A. in March 1974. Stafford continued to have moderate chart success through most of 1975.
The Jim Stafford Show appeared on ABC
in 1975. He appeared as well numerous times on music specials, variety shows, and talk shows. He was a frequent guest on the Tonight Show. He co-hosted Those Amazing Animals with Burgess Meredith
and Priscilla Presley
, and also hosted 56 episodes of Nashville on the Road.
In 1976, Stafford guest starred in 2 episodes of the TV show Gemini Man
, which were later combined into a television movie titled "Riding with Death".
soundtracks, including The Fox and the Hound and Any Which Way You Can
, in which Stafford appeared. His work has been covered
by George Jones
and Jerry Reed
. His second classical guitar
album
, Somewhere in Time appeared in March 2002.
, Missouri
since the 1990s. His children accompany him on stage.
show, "Branson USA".
briefly to singer-songwriter
Bobbie Gentry
and they have a son, Tyler. Stafford and his present wife/business partner Ann have two children, and live outside of Branson, on Table Rock Lake
.
According to a Summer 2011 article in the Winter Haven News Chief paper, he has purchased a home in his home town of Winter Haven, Florida.
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
) is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
comedian
Comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...
, musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
, and singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
, prominent in the 1970s. Stafford is self-taught on guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, fiddle
Fiddle
The term fiddle may refer to any bowed string musical instrument, most often the violin. It is also a colloquial term for the instrument used by players in all genres, including classical music...
, piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
, banjo
Banjo
In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...
, organ
Organ (music)
The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...
and harmonica
Harmonica
The harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...
.
Stafford was raised in Winter Haven
Winter Haven, Florida
Winter Haven is a city in Polk County, Florida, United States. The population was 26,487 at the 2000 census. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2007 estimates, the city had a population of 32,577, making it the second most populated city in Polk County...
, Florida. In high school, he played in a band along with friends Bobby Braddock
Bobby Braddock
Robert Valentine Braddock is an American country music songwriter and record producer. A member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, Braddock has contributed numerous hit songs during more than 40 years in the industry, including 13 number-one hit...
, Kent LaVoie (also known as Lobo
Lobo (musician)
Roland Kent LaVoie, better known by the stage name Lobo , is an American singer-songwriter who was successful in the early 1970s, scoring several U.S...
) and Gram Parsons
Gram Parsons
Gram Parsons was an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and pianist. Parsons is best known for his work within the country genre; he also mixed blues, folk, and rock to create what he called "Cosmic American Music"...
(of the Byrds).
Recording history
Stafford's first chartRecord chart
A record chart is a ranking of recorded music according to popularity during a given period of time. Examples of music charts are the Hit parade, Hot 100 or Top 40....
hit
Hit record
A hit record is a sound recording, usually in the form of a single or album, that sells a large number of copies or otherwise becomes broadly popular or well-known, through airplay, club play, inclusion in a film or stage play soundtrack, causing it to have "hit" one of the popular chart listings...
was "Swamp Witch", produced by Lobo, which cracked the U.S. Top 40 in July 1973. By early 1974 he had charted his biggest hit, "Spiders and Snakes", which peaked at #3 on the Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
that March. It sold over two million copies, and was awarded a gold disc
Music recording sales certification
Music recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped or sold a certain number of copies, where the threshold quantity varies by type and by nation or territory .Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories,...
by the R.I.A.A. in March 1974. Stafford continued to have moderate chart success through most of 1975.
Television work
In 1967 and 1968, Stafford performed regularly and served as head writer/producer for the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.The Jim Stafford Show appeared on ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
in 1975. He appeared as well numerous times on music specials, variety shows, and talk shows. He was a frequent guest on the Tonight Show. He co-hosted Those Amazing Animals with Burgess Meredith
Burgess Meredith
Oliver Burgess Meredith , known professionally as Burgess Meredith, was an American actor in theatre, film, and television, who also worked as a director...
and Priscilla Presley
Priscilla Presley
Priscilla Presley is an American actress and businesswoman. She is the ex-wife of singer Elvis Presley, and the mother of singer-songwriter Lisa Marie Presley....
, and also hosted 56 episodes of Nashville on the Road.
In 1976, Stafford guest starred in 2 episodes of the TV show Gemini Man
Gemini Man
Gemini Man is an American action/adventure drama series that aired on NBC in 1976. This is the third of four weekly television series based on the H. G. Wells science fiction novel, The Invisible Man.-Synopsis:...
, which were later combined into a television movie titled "Riding with Death".
Songwriting
Stafford contributed to several movieFilm
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
soundtracks, including The Fox and the Hound and Any Which Way You Can
Any Which Way You Can
* Beers To You** Written by Steve Dorff , John Durrill , Sandy Pinkard and Snuff Garrett ** Sung by Ray Charles and Clint Eastwood* Any Which Way You Can...
, in which Stafford appeared. His work has been covered
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
by George Jones
George Jones
George Glenn Jones is an American country music singer known for his long list of hit records, his distinctive voice and phrasing, and his marriage to Tammy Wynette....
and Jerry Reed
Jerry Reed
Jerry Reed Hubbard , known professionally as Jerry Reed, was an American country music singer, innovative guitarist, songwriter, and actor who appeared in more than a dozen films...
. His second classical guitar
Classical guitar
The classical guitar is a 6-stringed plucked string instrument from the family of instruments called chordophones...
album
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
, Somewhere in Time appeared in March 2002.
Live performances
Stafford has operated and performed at The Jim Stafford Theatre in BransonBranson, Missouri
Branson is a city in Taney County in the U.S. state of Missouri. It was named after Reuben Branson, postmaster and operator of a general store in the area in the 1880s....
, Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
since the 1990s. His children accompany him on stage.
Other work
Stafford hosted, co-wrote, and produced a nationally syndicated radioRadio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
show, "Branson USA".
Personal life
In the late 1970s, Stafford was marriedMarriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
briefly to singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
Bobbie Gentry
Bobbie Gentry
Roberta Lee Streeter , professionally known as Bobbie Gentry, is a former American singer-songwriter notable as one of the first female country artists to compose and produce her own material...
and they have a son, Tyler. Stafford and his present wife/business partner Ann have two children, and live outside of Branson, on Table Rock Lake
Table Rock Lake
Table Rock Lake is an artificial lake or reservoir in The Ozarks of southwestern Missouri and northwestern Arkansas. It is impounded by Table Rock Dam constructed in 1954-1958 on the White River by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It is one of the tourist draws for the nearby town of Branson,...
.
According to a Summer 2011 article in the Winter Haven News Chief paper, he has purchased a home in his home town of Winter Haven, Florida.
Albums
| Year | Album | Chart Positions | Label | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists... |
US Country | CAN Canadian Albums Chart The Canadian Albums Chart is the official album sales chart in Canada. It is compiled every Wednesday by U.S.-based music sales tracking company Nielsen Soundscan, and published every Thursday by Jam! Canoe and Billboard, along with its sister charts the Canadian Singles Chart and the Canadian BDS... |
|||
| 1974 | Jim Stafford | 55 | 6 | 48 | MGM |
| 1975 | Not Just Another Pretty Foot | — | — | — |
Singles
| Year | Single | Chart Positions | R.I.A.A. Recording Industry Association of America The Recording Industry Association of America is a trade organization that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States... . |
Album | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US Billboard Hot 100 The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday... |
US Country Hot Country Songs Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States.This 60-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly mostly by airplay and occasionally commercial sales... |
CAN Canadian Singles Chart The Canadian Singles Chart is currently compiled by the U.S.-based music sales tracking company, Nielsen SoundScan . The chart is compiled every Wednesday, and is published by Jam! Canoe on Thursdays.... |
CAN Country | CAN AC | ||||
| 1973 | "Swamp Witch" | 39 | — | 46 | — | — | — | Jim Stafford |
| 1974 | "Spiders & Snakes" | 3 | 66 | 1 | — | 9 | Gold | |
| "My Girl Bill" | 12 | 64 | 7 | 16 | 18 | — | ||
| "Wildwood Weed" | 7 | 57 | 3 | — | 2 | — | ||
| 1975 | "Your Bulldog Drinks Champagne" | 24 | — | 46 | — | — | — | Not Just Another Pretty Foot |
| "I Got Stoned and I Missed It" | 37 | — | 78 | — | — | — | ||
| 1976 | "Jasper" | 69 | — | — | — | — | — | singles only |
| 1977 | "Turn Loose of My Leg" | 98 | — | — | — | — | — | |
| 1978 | "One Step Ahead of the Law" | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| 1980 | "Don't Fool Around" | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| 1981 | "Cow Patti" | 102 | 65 | — | 31 | — | — | |
| "Isabel and Samantha" | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| 1982 | "What Mama Don't Know" | — | 61 | — | — | — | — | |
| 1984 | "Little Bits and Pieces" | — | 67 | — | — | — | — | |