It's very difficult when someone mentions Frank Sinatra not to associate the song My Way with his name. And a song title can prompt the name of a singer - Singing in the Rain brings Gene Kelly to mind, It's not unusual conjures up Tom Jones and so on. Ah, you'll say - Golden Oldies - and they are, but that's because this curious phenomenon only happens over time; you have to wait  to see whose performance was the one which really reached out and touched listeners and became the definitive interpretation so that the song lived on beyond its time.

Originally, Body and Soul was the title of a silent film made in 1925. The film, in turn, inspired a song written in 1930 which eventually became one of the all-time jazz greats - later singers such as Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn - each added her own individual interpretation to this sad and beautiful love song.  But it was a virtually unknown Australian singer who first sang the words I'm all for you, body and soul - her name was Marjorie Stedeford.

Marjorie Stedeford

Reproduced by arrangement with the Documentation Collection, ScreenSound Australia. 

Marjorie Stedeford was born in December 1909 in St. Kilda, a suburb of Melbourne. Her father was John Stedeford, a descendent of English Stedefords from North Devon. Her mother was Edith Torr and she was the youngest of their three children.