Jimmy Stafford - Mark Johnson - Grant LaCerte ca.1960

Jim Stafford first started playing guitar with his father, a successful area dry cleaner, on the porch of their Central Florida home during the fifties. Born to a musical family in Eloise (a suburb of Winter Haven), he was playing in his first band at age 14.

While still in his teens, Jim put together a band, the Legends, with his friend, Gram Parsons, now heralded as one of the creators of the country-rock sound that came out of the late 1960s. "He was 13 and I was 16 when we started playing sock hops, Elks clubs, veterans halls, dances, weddings, anywhere we could play," Stafford recalls. "I started making a living at this at 16 and it's paid my way ever since."

As soon as he graduated from high school, Stafford went to Nashville, where he was a backup musician for Jumpin' Bill Carlisle. He began his famous one-man-band act during a session, when his drummer suddenly quit. He also continued to hone his songwriting skills, focusing on novelty songs because he felt his singing voice wasn't very good. He started out playing dance clubs, where he offered humorous running commentaries on the skills of the go-go dancers.

He was performing in Clearwater, Florida when he reunited with boyhood friend Kent LaVoie better known as Lobo. Stafford asked him to perform his song "Swamp Witch," but Lobo convinced Stafford to perform it himself. The song eventually made its way to Mike Curb, who signed Stafford to MGM Records. Working with Miami producer Phil Gernhard, the single was released in 1973 and became a Top 40 pop hit.

MGM then released "Spiders & Snakes," which would be million seller for Stafford, using a swamp-rock sound reminiscent of Tony Joe White to tell a humorous tale. The song was composed by Stafford and David Bellamy of the Bellamy Brothers. It was a smash hit on both the pop and country charts and went gold in 1974.

His next hit was the playful "My Girl Bill," which did better on the pop charts than the country charts and was his biggest UK hit. His next hit, "Wildwood Weed" (co-written with Don Bowman) reached the Top 10. Both of these were co-produced by Lobo and Phil Gernhard.

The same strand of humour ran through the 1975 single "Your Bulldog Drinks Champagne". By now a minor celebrity, Jim hosted a networked summer variety show replacement series The Jim Stafford Show, from Los Angeles, which featured Mel Blanc. Although Stafford's quirky songs brought him fame, the show also gave him a chance to also showcase his exceptional ability as a guitar player. This was also where he met and married Bobbie Gentry. Late in 1975, he had another pop hit for MGM, "I Got Stoned and I Missed It."

He had two more minor pop hits in the '70s: "Jasper" (Polydor 1976), co-written with Dave Loggins, and "Turn Loose Of My Leg" (Warner Bro./Curb 1977).

In 1980, following a divorce from singer Bobbie Gentry, Jim appeared in Clint Eastwood's Any Which Way You Can and penned the song "Cow Patti," which made the Top 70 on the country charts in 1981.

The following year, he hosted Nashville on the Road with Rex Allen, Jr. and Sue Powell, and composed three songs for Disney's animated feature The Fox and the Hound.

During the rest of the eighties, Stafford performed in Las Vegas and at small concerts and county fairs. He also served a stint as head writer on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.

In 1990, Jim stumbled across Branson, Missouri before it had become a household word. "Branson was just another date on my itinerary until I got here and discovered what was here," he says. "I had no idea there was a place like this." "Until then", he recalls, "I was doing things by the book, showing up in one town one night, doing the gig, getting paid and heading to the next town in time for the next night's show". "For a performer to settle down in one place and hope people would come to see him", he says, "took a great leap of faith. ...Giving that (the road) up was a frightening proposition". He admits that in the beginning he had more than a few second thoughts.

Indeed, Stafford is now ensconced here. He lives with his wife, Ann, and their children in a house on a nearby lake that he says is "our only home", and heads to work each day to his own theater. His wife Ann runs the theater.

In Branson, he had to learn to be both performer and businessman, owning a theater with a huge marketing budget and about 140 employees.

Not everyone that sets up shop in Branson has made the adjustment so well. Some very big names have quickly passed through the little Ozark Mountain town with little or no success.

"A misconception is that this is a retirement ground for performers," Stafford says. "Some people think that if you come to Branson and just hang out your sign, people will come. It's not like that. You have to work hard at what you do here".

So, if you ever find yourself wondering what happened to Jim Stafford after his string of quirky country-pop hits in the 1970s and his stints with TV in the 1980s, the answer is simple: He moved to Branson and took over the place.