Once called "America's Most Versatile Singing Star, Jo Stafford certainly lived up to that description in a career that spanned some four decades. Born in 1917 in Coalinga, California, her parents were gifted with natural singing voices - her mother sang her a welter of folk ditties as she grew up. Some of those old tunes provided the roots for Jo's later career, becoming in the process, part of America's musical heritage. She recorded a selection in the late forties and they are the basis for the opening disc here. The remaining selections show Jo Stafford at her most accomplished and versatile - often in the company of talented peers like Johnny Mercer, Frankie Laine, Gordon MacRae and Tommy Dorsey.