Jim Stafford - Biography
By Jonny Whiteside
Guitarist and novelty song kingpin Jim Stafford rose from a lowly start that included a loss on Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour and numerous jobs entertaining in southern strip clubs to an equally amazing pinnacle of international fame, becoming a chart topping radio staple with dozens of appearances on top television variety show and eventually, his own network show. While the quick-witted Stafford is ineradicably linked to goofball numbers like "Spiders & Snakes," he is also a serious musician widely recognized as a guitarist and banjo player of formidable skill. He also enjoyed some impressive alliances – his high school rock band featured country-rock spearhead Gram Parsons and later Stafford played guitar for the veteran country star Jumpin' Bill Carlisle at the Grand Ole Opry. But it was his dynamic one-man band shtick (thrust upon him when his drummer suddenly quit) that first brought Stafford notice and ultimately led the way to major successes and a steady sit-down gig at his own theater in the hillbilly heaven of Branson, Missouri.
Born James Wayne Stafford on January 16, 1944 in Eloise, Florida; Stafford's initial inspiration to purse a music career came from his father, a drycleaner who regularly broke out his guitar for solo jams on the family home’s front porch, sessions that invariably drew a crowd of neighbors. As a teenager, Stafford played in a amateur yet auspicious rock band that featured not only Gram Parsons, but also Kent Lavoie (AKA Lobo, of "Me, You & a Dog Named Boo" fame) and drummer Jon Corneal, who went on to play with Loretta Lynn, The Glaser Brothers and again with Parsons in The International Submarine Band and The Flying Burrito Brothers. It was an impressive aggregation yet none them would ever match Stafford's achievements. After graduating from high school in the mid-1960s, Corneal and Stafford headed out for Nashville, where the former got a job with The Wilburn Brothers while the latter was hired by Bill Carlisle (himself a past master of the country novelty song). Stafford also worked on the road with honky-tonk godfather Carl Smith and back in Music City, tired to get a break with his one-man band act. Nothing came of it and he drifted to Memphis and then Atlanta.
It was 1964, the heyday of the whimsical country novelty song – Roger Miller's "Dang Me," Ray Stevens's "Ahab the Arab" – and taken with what he'd learned beside Bill Carlisle (who'd been cutting racy double entendre specialties since the 1930s and frequently used a bright green wig in his act), Stafford began to concentrate on what he referred to as his “off-the-wall songs,” and spent a number of years working throughout the southeast, honing his routine in lounges, go-go bars and strip clubs. Into one of these, Clearwater, Florida's Shack on the Beach, walked Kent Lavoie, already riding high as Lobo. Stafford pitched his old friend one of his songs “Swamp Witch.” Lobo passed, telling Stafford he was the one meant to record it and assisted in securing him a contract with MGM Records. The record bounced into the Top Forty in 1973 and Stafford followed it up with the droll, infectious “Spiders & Snakes,” the song that would become his calling card and provide him the type of breakout success every singer-songwriter dreams of (it also boosted the profile of co-writer David Bellamy, whose sibling act the Bellamy brothers would soon began scoring their own hits). “Spiders & Snakes” rocketed up the pop chart to the number three spot, made the country Top Seventy and even reached number fourteen in the UK. Stafford was hot – the trade mag Record World placed him fourth in their “Top Male Vocalist" roll call, beaten out only by Elton John, Stevie Wonder and John Denver. The “Spiders & Snakes” single was certified Gold the following year. By then he had already cranked out the androgynous, oddball ditty "My Girl Bill," a Top Fifteen pop hit (also Top Twenty in the UK) and made the Top Ten with "Wildwood Weed." 1975 brought him two more Top 40 hits "Your Bulldog Drinks Champagne" and "I Got Stoned and I Missed It." Not exactly squeaky clean fare, but it was all ideally suited to the times.
Stafford had exploited poplar music's long history of humorous songs at the perfect moment, charming a nation that was sick to death of the interminable Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. With his all-American good looks and southern charm, Stafford made the most of it. He became a household name via numerous television appearances, making twenty six visits to Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show and with his own Jim Stafford Show, an ABC summer replacement series (it was not renewed). He got all sorts of recognition, a feature in Guitar Player magazine (his custom built, one-of-a-kind guitar/banjo was a real eye-popper) and in 1977, he got Esquire magazine's "Lifestyle Award for Fashion," an accolade that ranked him beside such natty big names as Bob Hope and Telly Savalas. Record sales cooled though and his late seventies singles "Jasper" and "Turn Loose of My Leg" just got lost in the post-Saturday Night Fever shuffle. He wed Country Queen Bobbie Gentry (she of "Ode to Billie Joe" fame) but they divorced just two years later. 1980 was a good year for Stafford, with appearance in the Clint Eastwood and Clyde the Orangutan vehicle, Any Which You Can, which prompted release of the single “Cow Patty,” a Top Seventy country hit. He also co-hosted, with Burgess Meredith and Priscilla Presley, ABC TV’s Those Amazing Animals, followed by co-host duties on the syndicated Nashville on the Road television program.
He finished up the eighties playing Las Vegas show rooms. In 1990, he landed in Branson, Missouri, where he still plays to packed houses, playing guitar and cutting up nightly.
