Jim Stafford: Jim Stafford, CD

Jim Stafford performed during the 1960s with a local Florida band that also included noted singer-songwriter Lobo and rock legend-to-be Gram Parsons. Following this Lobo was to co-produce most of Jim’s big hits, including his debut ‘Swamp Witch’, which made 39 in the US in 1973, and ‘Spiders and Snakes’, later the same year, which went to number three in the US, was a major UK hit and earned a gold disc for more than a million sales worldwide.Both were included on Stafford’s eponymous LP, a release in 1974 on MGM Records, along with another hit ‘My Girl Bill’ (US number 12 in 1974). He can play a mean guitar but it’s the catchy tunes and witty lyrics he writes that win the day. He was married to a first lady of country, Bobbie Gentry, at the time and moved in those circles himself, but there are a range of styles on this LP which Stafford attacks with panache, including pastiche Blues, real down home Tony Joe White style swamp rock, wistful country folk.The last 18 years have been spent running his own Theatre in Branson, Missouri performing his own mixed brand of comedy and music to packed houses every week.