Multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter from Eloise, Florida, from a musical family who encouraged him to tap into his own musical potential. He learned how to play guitar when he was still very young, and by the time he was fourteen, he was already in his first band. At sixteen years of age, he co-formed The Legends with Kent LaVoie (a.k.a. Lobo) and Gram Parsons.
Once he graduated high school, he made the great egress to Nashville, Tennessee, where he found employ with Bill Carlisle’s band. When the drummer quit, Jim showed off his versatility by whipping up a one-man band routine that would soon become his signature act.
In the meantime, he honed his songwriting skills and during a chance meeting with his ex-Legend band-mate, Lobo, he offered up one of his songs, “The Swamp Witch”. Lobo encouraged Jim to record it instead and even managed to help him ink a deal with MGM records, going so far as to produce a number of his records. “The Swamp Witch” cracked the top forty and Jim’s career as a hit-maker was off and running. Its follow-up, “Spiders and Snakes”, co-penned by David Bellamy, snaked its way to #3 and spent half a year on the pop chart, going gold in the process. Other hits followed: “Cow Patti”, “My Girl Bill”, “Wildwood Weed” and “Your Bulldog Drinks Champagne” all captured the public’s imagination, thanks to Jim’s whimsical lyrics and innate ability to not take himself at all seriously. Their lyrics and musicality were top-drawer enough to keep him from being pigeonholed as a novelty act.
In 1975, Jim parlayed his chart success into a short-lived television program, simply titled The Jim Stafford Show. During the 1970s and 1980s, Jim was a media darling, appearing in films and TV shows such as Any Which Way You Can, Blood Suckers from Outer Space, Fantasy Island, The Love Boat, and The Tonight Show, on which he is reputed to have appeared twenty-six times. In the late ‘80s, he multi-tasked on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour as a performer, producer, and supervising writer.
In his 40s, he decided to pack up and move to Branson, Missouri, which was becoming a hotbed for country and western music, and there he has performed in his own theatre ever since, doing a staggering number of shows, over 350 per year. The tireless Stafford has also taken his show on the road to Tanglewood, California. From February through December, it is back to the grindstone in Branson. For more information on his shows and ticket availability, please click on his website, listed below.
Jim Stafford recordings
I Ain’t Working (Jim Stafford)
I Got Stoned and I Missed It (Shel Silverstein)
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