Connie Francis, who dominated the pop charts in the late 1950s and early 1960s with sobbing ballads like Who’s Sorry Now? and Don’t Break the Heart that Loves You, as well as up-tempo soft-rock tunes like Stupid Cupid, Lipstick on Your Collar and Vacation, has died aged 87.
Her publicist, Ron Roberts, announced her death in a post on Facebook.
Petite and pretty, Francis had an easy, fluid vocal style, a powerful set of lungs and a natural way with a wide variety of material: old standards, rock’n’roll, country and western, and popular songs in Italian, Yiddish, Swedish and a dozen other languages.
Between 1958 and 1964, when her brand of pop music began to fall out of favour, Francis was the most popular female singer in the United States, selling 40 million records. Her 35 top 40 hits during that period included 16 songs in the top 10, and three number one hits: Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool, My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own and Don’t Break the Heart That Loves You.
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She was best known for the pulsing, emotional delivery that coaxed every last teardrop from slow ballads like Who’s Sorry Now? and made Where the Boys Are a potent anthem of teenage longing. Sighing youngsters thrilled to every throb in My Happiness and Among My Souvenirs.
“What struck me was the purity of the voice, the emotion, the perfect pitch and intonation,” said Neil Sedaka, who wrote Stupid Cupid and Where the Boys Are with Howard Greenfield. “It was clear, concise, beautiful. When she sang ballads, they just soared.”
Her song Pretty Little Baby had a TikTok-fuelled resurgence this year, trending for weeks on the social media app and soaring to top spots in Spotify’s Viral 50 global and US lists.
Concetta Franconero was born December 12th, 1938, in Newark, New Jersey, and grew up in the Ironbound neighbourhood. Her father, the son of Italian immigrants, was a dockworker and a roofer who loved to play the concertina, and he put an accordion in his daughter’s hands when she was aged three.
From that moment, he hovered over her musical development and her career, putting her onstage at local lodges and churches. She made her stage debut aged four, singing Anchors Aweigh and accompanying herself on the accordion at Olympic Park in Irvington, New Jersey.
At 11, Francis was a regular on a Marie Moser’s Starlets, a local television variety show. After appearing on Ted Mack’s Original Amateur Hour and Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts. Mack advised her to lose the accordion, and Godfrey advised her to change her last name to “Francis”. She then embarked on a four-year run as one of the child entertainers on Startime.
As she outgrew the child star category, Francis obtained forged documents and began singing in clubs and lounges. Imitating the vocals styles of stars like Patti Page and Rosemary Clooney, she made demonstration tapes for music publishers who wanted to place their songs with famous singers. – This article originally appeared in the New York Times.
