CONNIE FRANCIS ( December 12, 1937 - July 17, 2025 )

Songstress / Actress Connie Francis has passed away.  She was 87 years old.

Connie checked herself into the hospital a little over two weeks ago to see if doctors could determine the cause of her constant pain. Ironically, her last Facebook post on the 4th of July stated that she was "feeling much better after a good night."

From a female perspective, Connie Francis dominated the pop charts (along with Brenda Lee) during the first stage of the Rock And Roll / Top 40 era, placing 44 songs in The National Top 40 between  1956 and 1966.  Eighteen of those hits made The Top Ten and three of those went all the way to #1. 

(Connie's complete HIT LIST can be viewed below) 

Connie was fortunate enough to see an obscure album track she recorded back in 1962, "Pretty Little Baby," become a TikTok sensation over the past several months, earning over twenty million streams. Incredibly, several of the death announcements I saw posted Thursday Morning referred to her as the "Pretty Little Baby" artist ... a headline that eclipsed her incredible chart career.  Connie was as surprised as anyone to see this 63 year old song take off, admitting that she herself didn't remember it!  (She told People Magazine "“To tell you the truth, I didn’t even remember the song! I had to listen to it to remember.")  Imagine how much it will take off now!

Connie's career was driven by a demanding father who would stop at nothing to clear a path for his daughter's success.  (This even included chasing Bobby Darin, the love of Connie's life, away with a gun!)  Theirs was a true love story but Papa Franconeo was letting NOTHING stand in the way of her daughter's career.  To ensure international appeal, he even had his daughter record a number of her songs in multiple languages, leaving nothing to chance!

Despite that successful career, Connie's life was filled with stressful challenges once the hits stopped happening.  (Francis, like so many other American artists, saw her chart success sidelined with the arrival of The British Invasion.  Of those 44 National Top 40 Hits, only two came post-1964.)

After an appearance at The Westbury Music Fair, she was raped in her nearby hotel room in 1974.  Ten years later, she attempted suicide.  In between were bouts with drugs, paranoia and depression.  Cosmetic surgery on her nose in the late '60's left her unable to sing in an air-conditioned room, making it impossible for her to perform in most clubs and Las Vegas casinos. Corrective surgery a decade later caused her to lose her voice entirely. In 1981, her younger brother, George, was murdered.  A tailspin worse than anything you could imagine followed as Connie struggled to get well again.  In her own words, "In the ’80's, I was involuntarily committed to mental institutions 17 times in nine years in five different states.  I was misdiagnosed as bipolar, ADD, ADHD, and a few other letters the scientific community had never heard of. A few years later, I was discovered to have had post-traumatic stress disorder following a horrendous string of events in my life."

Neil Sedaka, who wrote Connie's hits "Stupid Cupid" (#14, 1958) and "Where The Boys Are" (#2, 1961) had this to say about Connie Francis:  “What struck me was the purity of the voice, the emotion, the perfect pitch and intonation.  It was clear, concise, beautiful. When she sang ballads, they just soared.”  (Expect hundreds of tributes from fellow admirers to follow.)

Connie Francis always placed high on our list of Deserving And Denied Artists who were never recognized by The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.  When Brenda Lee was inducted back in 2002, it just seemed natural that Connie would be next ... but she never even made the nomination ballot.  When I talked with people representing the Rock Hall for our 2007 series, I was told that she likely never would.  The general feeling there at the time was that inducting Brenda Lee was a mistake they couldn't undo ... and honoring Connie Francis would only compound that error.  Ridiculous.  Connie and Brenda represented Rock And Roll / Popular Music during its inception.  There was NOBODY bigger than these two in the way of female performers ... and they BOTH belong there. 

Connie was not an overnight success ... her first ten recordings failed to make an impression on the charts.  After finally giving in to her father's insistence that she record "Who's Sorry Now" in 1958 (Connie HATED the song ... and felt it sounded much too old fashioned ... they had been arguing about it for a year and a half before she finally relented, and only then because she still had sixteen minutes to go on a recording session), she finally earned her first hit record.

Connie later said, "My father wanted me to record that song for a year and a half and I turned him down.  I had 18 bomb records and was about to be dropped by the label ... and he wants me to record a song written in 1923.  It was a square song and the kids on ‘American Bandstand’ would laugh me right out of the show.  And he said, 'If you don't record this song, dummy, the only way you'll get on American Bandstand is if you sit on top of the television set.' So I did it as the last song.

"I stretched the other songs before I got to ‘Who’s Sorry Now’ so there wouldn’t be time.  But there were still 16 minutes left. My father said, ‘If I have to nail you to that microphone, you’re gonna do "Who’s Sorry Now."’ So I did it. I didn’t like it … and at first the track also performed poorly ... I remember that record had been out for three months and it went nowhere ... but Dick Clark liked it and he played it on American Bandstand … and then it became a hit in both the US and the UK.  It was a cosmic moment for me. It’s a moment I’ll never forget. Because I knew in five seconds my life would never be the same. And it wasn’t. It was a happy shock."  Francis and Clark would form a lifelong friendship.  

"Who's Sorry Now" soared to #2 and sold a million copies ... and her life was changed overnight.  Connie never looked back, placing at least one song in The Top Ten every year between 1958 and 1962.  In 1960, she became the first solo female artist to hit the #1 spot on The Billboard Hot 100 when "Everybody's Somebody's Fool" topped the chart for the first of two weeks.

[EDITOR'S NOTE:  Once again, Billboard is ignoring all of their charts prior to the August, 1958 launch of The Hot 100.  Earlier #1 Hits by female artists during the rock era, 1955 - 1958, include: "Let Me Go Lover" by Joan Weber, "Rock And Roll Waltz" by Kay Starr, "The Wayward Wind" by Gogi Grant and "Tammy" by Debbie Reynolds ... some pretty big hits in their own right! By the way, Connie had four Top Ten Hits of her own before Billboard launched their Hot 100 Chart - kk]

A "MUST READ" is Connie's autobiography "Among My Souvenirs, Part 1."  (Sadly, I'm guessing we'll never see a Part 2, although she often mentioned that she was working on it.  Perhaps it can finally see the light of day posthumously.)  

And finally, we offer yet another request to the powers that be on the Nominating Committee ...

PLEASE do right and induct Connie Francis into The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.  She earned it.  We've been pushing for this for almost twenty years now.  We wanted to see it happen while she was still alive so she could bask in the moment.  Once again, you've waited far too long ... and now that moment has passed.  But you can still allow her her rightful place in The Rock Hall.  (kk)

 

Connie in June of this year

 

THE CONNIE FRANCIS HIT LIST

1956	My Treasure	37
1958	Who's Sorry Now	2
1958	I'm Sorry I Made You Cry	10
1958	Stupid Cupid	14
1958	Carolina Moon	32
1958	Fallin'	30
1959	My Happiness	2
1959	If I Didn't Care	9
1959	Lipstick On Your Collar	3
1959	Frankie	5
1959	You're Gonna Miss Me	22
1959	Plenty Good Lovin'	39
1959	God Bless America	29
1959	Among My Souvenirs	5
1960	Teddy	17
1960	Mama	7
1960	Jealous Of You (Tango Della Gelosia)	19
1960	Everybody's Somebody's Fool	1
1960	My Heart Has A Mind Of Its Own	1
1960	Malaguena	42
1960	Many Tears Ago	6
1961	No One	34
1961	Where The Boys Are	2
1961	Breakin' In A Brand New Broken Heart	3
1961	Together	4
1961	(He's My) Dreamboat	14
1961	Hollywood	20
1961	Baby's First Christmas	22
1961	When The Boy In Your Arms (Is The Boy In Your Heart)	7
1962	Don't Break The Heart That Loves You	1
1962	Second Hand Love	6
1962	Vacation	9
1962	He Thinks I Still Care	51
1962	I Was Such A Fool (To Fall In Love With You)	18
1963	I'm Gonna Be Warm This Winter	17
1963	Al Di La	59
1963	Follow The Boys	11
1963	If My Pillow Could Talk	14
1963	Drownin' My Sorrows	26
1963	Your Other Love	20
1963	In The Summer Of His Years	31
1963	Blue Winter	13
1964	Be Anything (But Be Mine)	20
1964	Looking For Love	34
1964	Don't Ever Leave Me	37
1965	Whose Heart Are You Breaking Tonight	42
1965	For Mama (La Mamma)	30
1965	Wishing It Was You	49
1965	Forget Domani	58
1965	Jealous Heart	25

Thursday This And That

I enjoyed your write-up of Burton Cummings’ concert. I saw him on Saturday in Davenport, IA, and it looked like he had a blast. So many concerts I’ve seen lately barely include any talking or background of the songs, so I liked hearing Burton “humblebrag” with a sense of humor about his (well-deserved) gold records and discuss how “Laughing” was written in under an hour.

It’s interesting that you brought up how he played “Star Baby” after seeing someone in the audience wearing a shirt with that title on it … because the same thing happened in Davenport. Hmmm …

Prior to heading in, I was looking forward to hearing him play and I was blown away on every level.

Next month, I’ll be seeing Peter Noone & Herman’s Hermits at the Iowa State Fair … I heard they still sound great, too.

Colin Donahue

You will have a GREAT time at the Peter Noone concert … guaranteed!

I’m not sure how well “Star Baby” gets across in other cities in light of its #39 Billboard showing …

But it sure was a big hit here in Chicago!  (kk)

BTW, you can buy a “Star Baby” T-Shirt from Burton’s website!

https://shop.burtoncummings.com/products/star-baby-t-shirt 

Here’s a vintage interview Harvey Kubernik did with Burton Cummings from back in 1974 …

Guess Who's a smash!

Harvey Kubernik, Melody Maker, 28 December 1974

© Harvey Kubernik, 1974

"I WANTED to buy some records, so I went collecting for UNICEF on Halloween and took the money," recalls the 26-year-old lead singer for the Guess Who, Burton Cummings, as the remaining members of the group, Bill Wallace – bass, Garry Peterson – drums and Domenic Troiano – guitar, filed into the fourth floor office of RCA records.

Burton and Co. have long since made up for his crime of 15 years ago, when the group recently raised $70,000 for the financially troubled Canadian Ballet, and another $17,000 for the Winnipeg Zoo.

The Guess Who have been in Los Angeles finishing up their 13th album for RCA, Flavours, and to give a concert at the Anaheim Convention Centre. Over the years, the Guess Who have turned out many hit singles, and some very impressive albums. However, the Guess Who are earning the title as the most misunderstood, underrated, and consistently entertaining band ever produced in the rock genre.

The original members came from a Winnipeg group called Chad Allen and the Expressions. When Allen departed, they changed their name to the Guess Who. At the time, the group consisted of Jim Kale, Gerry Peterson, Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman, now the guiding force behind the Bachman Turner Overdrive. Then, in 1966, the group dented the charts with the definitive version of 'Shakin' All Over.'

It wasn't until 1969 that the Guess Who achieved international recognition with their first million seller single, 'These Eyes.'  As the decade approached its end, the Cummings-Bachman team turned out three more million-selling tunes, 'Laughing,' 'No Time' and 'American Woman.'

In 1970, Bachman left the band, or from Cumming's perspective, "He was kicked out," replacing him with two Winnipeg musicians, Greg Leskiw and Kurt Winter. The group then ventured into new musical spheres with an album entitled, Share The Land.

Through the next year or two, the group gained recognition with tunes such as: 'Albert Flasher,' 'Rain Dance,' 'Sour Suite' and 'Glamour Boy,' which helped fill a second volume of the Guess Who's Best.

In 1972, Jim Kale and Greg Leskiw left the band. Replacing them were two friends from over the years, Don McDougall and Bill Wallace. The new power-packed Guess Who made their debut with an album, Guess Who Live At The Paramount, which paved the way for subsequent LP's such as: Artificial Paradise, No. 10 and the group's 1974 offering, Road Food.

The Guess Who have recently undergone another major personnel change with Domenic Troiano replacing both McDougall and Winter. Dom is a veteran of Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks, Mandala, Bush, and the James Gang.

"This is the best incarnation of the Guess Who," Cummings said. "The new LP contains a variety of different musical forms, and with Domenic playing, the musicianship has improved tremendously. Dom and Bill have sung lead with other groups over the years, and in this group, we now have a strong vocal contingent."

Domenic added, "The James Gang was a lot of fun for a while, but musically it was kinda narrow. In the Guess Who there's more room to try new things."

Flavours was written in five days. "I dig writing with Dom. I think we're just beginning. We're doing four songs from Flavours on this tour and getting good crowd reaction, especially on 'Dancin' Fool' and 'Long Gone'” mentions the dark haired multi-talented (piano, flute, guitar, vocals) Cummings.

On stage, Burton Cummings can be a combination of Mose Allison, Joe Cocker and Fats Domino rolled into one. "After studying ten years of classical piano, I discovered the real rock 'n' roll piano players, and they knocked me out. People like Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Little Richard.

"Around 1960, the guitar took prominence and the piano was pushed in the background."

Lyrically, Burton, the focal point of all Guess Who activity, was influenced by the British boom in the sixties and now, by mid-sixties lyrical giants as Dylan, "Mainly 'cause he wasn't just sitting down and writing love songs." Cummings is also partial to the works of Jim Morrison, Pete Townshend and, currently, the writing team of Fagen-Becker of Steely Dan.

Until recently the group still was pegged as a singles band, with their albums regarded as secondary activities. Burton said: "We're not a singles oriented band. After our initial success of six years ago, we swayed more to the LP. We do albums, and the singles get picked from them. Just because a group enjoys a large degree of success on AM radio, does that make them a 45 band? What group doesn't want exposure on AM radio or crack the music chart?"

Burton in many past vinyl efforts has mirrored the Canadian life style. Songs such as: 'Guns Guns Guns,' dealing with Canadian gun legislation, 'Eagle All Gone/And No More Caribou,' 'Glace Bay Blues,' 'Runnin Back To Saskatoon' and 'Light-foot,' a song written in 1968 about 1974's most popular folk singer, "His hair blondish and poetic / He is the image of Alberta / I sit softly waiting for him to paint his pictures / He is an artist," show the scenes, situations, and environment of growing up in Canada.

"You must understand the Winnipeg psyche," Cummings explains, "It's not like growing up in London, Los Angeles, New York, or Chicago. Winnipeg is a small town. It's the prairies in Canada. I was locked up there so long that's all I wrote about.

"Neil Young was in a group with Garry's brother and I was a paper boy from 9 to 12 and one of my customers was Don Hunter, now our manager. Everyone has gigged with each other at one time or another." Garry responded, "The first thing I recorded in 1962 was a record called, 'Tribute To Buddy Holly'."

The year is 1974 and the music from Canada is sweeping up the charts. The Band, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Gordon Lightfoot, Anne Murray and Terry Jacks, et al. "There's really no such thing as 'Canadian Rock'," says Domenic "Rock and roll is basically an American music form.

"Five years ago, there was an attitude that you were terrible if you're from Canada. Now, it's totally chauvinistic. You're great if you're from there. The Guess Who were the first group to make it from over the border, even though we're only 69 miles away from the States."

The group first tried to gain American recognition in 1967. Burton, who was only 18 at the time, recalls cutting three sides in England including, 'Flying On The Ground Is Wrong', a Neil Young composition which later surfaced on the first Buffalo Springfield LP. "We went to England to do an album and tour. The record deal and tour fell through. We were £25,000 in debt"

Canada around 1967 and 1968 exhibited geographical prejudices that hampered the band. "In Canada then, east was east and west was west. If you were a western Canadian band, you couldn't get a booking west or east of Ontario. You were the darlings and heroes from Montreal up to British Columbia. If you were an eastern Canadian band, you played places like Buffalo. Our manager, Don Hunter, had an idea to make the band nationally accepted in Canada. That was to do television.

"The Canadian Broadcasting Company kept the group together. We did 80 TV shows at 5:30 every Thursday for two years. In some major Canadian cities, we couldn't walk down the streets. Kids were asking for autographs. It was like the Monkees.

"The first year we did mostly cover versions of the top 30 tunes and the second year we got a chance to open up," Burton looks back fondly. Long before Procol Harum fused Rock with an Orchestra, Burton and the boys performed one week with an orchestra and did one half of Sgt. Pepper in 1968.

"We also did a concert then with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. It was a 50 piece ensemble with the Contemporary Dancers." So after failing to reach America through the back door, by going to England, the two years of TV paid off. RCA signed the Guess Who and the first record they released, 'These Eyes,' (covered also by Junior Walker and The All Stars) sold a million copies.

Besides the performing group, there are a lot of people behind the Guess Who who make it all happen. One is their producer, Jack Richardson (of Alice Cooper and Poco fame.) "A lot of people believed in the Guess Who. Jack mortgaged off his house so we could do the Whitfield Soul album. We didn't find out he did that until two years later. I was floored. We've grown up with him and work well together. He's taught us a lot, and we've taught him a lot.

"The Guess Who are a self-contained group, quite different from a fabricated studio group like Alice Cooper," laughs Burton. "He gets £75,000 a night and the group can barely play their way out of a paper bag."

Burton Cummings is a very upfront individual. Many of the things he believes in or feels are pictured in his songs. Last year, 'Glamour Boy,' off their 10th LP, gained some airplay in the Los Angeles area but failed as a single. "It wasn't a love song, perhaps it was too topical," Burt explains.

"The whole syndrome of painting your face and guys putting make-up on just got to the point of pissing me off. 'Glamour Boy get your costume on / You got 'em lined up waitin' for you / For £25,000, you can look like a woman tonight / For £25,000 I think it will work out all right ...' I did the song and lyrically it was my feeling of what's happening.

"There are so many groups around that are a joke. People want something more than good playing, but they settle for a lot less. Pure visuals with no music to go along with it. There are certain groups and people around that I wouldn't care if they wore 20 lbs of glitter and painted their faces, if they could back it up musically. Ninety per cent use make-up as their only hope.

"When it all comes out of the wash, 'Glamour Boy' will stand on its own two feet, a lot better than most of the songs by the so-called. 'Gorgeous People'."

© Harvey Kubernik, 1974

>>>We ventured out to The North Shore Center For Performing Arts in Skokie, IL, to see Burton Cummings and his band.  Burton was dressed in a "Midnight Special" T-Shirt, as was I!  We both received these shirts as gifts from East Coast Radio Programming Extraordinaire Tom Cuddy and I had a feeling he might wear his for the show so I dressed accordingly.  (A shame we couldn't get a picture of the two of us together.)  kk

And yet . . . there you are . . . together . . . vogueing in front of the North Shore Center theater . . . in your look-alike T-Shirts!!!

I don't get it!

Buell!

Awesome!  (Maybe you can get your own AI service going!)  kk

Oh wait …

We can say what we will about Artificial Intelligence, but sometimes it can create something that's just stunning!

For instance, I remember playing this when it was a Number One Song for two weeks in 1959 on my very first young, teenage radio shows.  (KRSD, Rapid City, South Dakota, for those of you who like minutiae!) 

I didn't appreciate it much then as a young rocker but as the years passed, I learned to enjoy it more.

And, to me, today's attached AI creation gave it some Great New Life.

You've probably heard it a number of times over our many years as well!

Chuck!

Steve Miller has cancelled ALL upcoming tour dates … because it’s just not safe to tour on Planet Earth anymore!  (OK, that’s a new one on me!)

According to Steve, "The threat of natural disasters such as floods, tornadoes and hurricanes has made the risk to his band, crew and fans "unacceptable.""

With a Wednesday night social media post Miller, who was set to launch a 28-date U.S. tour on August 15th in Bethel, New York said he was trusting his gut rather than putting people in harm's way:

You make music with your instincts.

You live your life by your instincts.

Always trust your instincts ...

The Steve Miller Band has cancelled all our upcoming tour dates.

The combination of extreme heat, unpredictable flooding, tornadoes, hurricanes and massive forest fires make these risks for you our audience, the band and the crew unacceptable.

So ...

You can blame it on the weather ... The tour is cancelled.

Don't know where, don't know when ... We hope to see you all again.

Wishing you all Peace, Love and Happiness,

Please take care of each other.

Steve, The Band and Crew

re: The Jeff Lynne debacle …

>>>In hindsight, better PR should have come into play  (kk)

you think????

dis

I’m sure everybody in Jeff’s camp (and Jeff in particular) was hoping he would be able to ride this thing out and still be able to perform … obviously, this was all booked and arranged MONTHS in advance … so once this illness came on, I doubt that anyone knew for sure how long it would last or how intense it might become.  Still better to have cancelled ALL of the shows with at least one week’s full notice than disappoint fans already in their seat!  (kk)

Look for a new documentary spotlighting the career of The Zombies …

Produced and directed by Robert Schwartzman, leader and frontman of the band Rooney, Hung Up On A Dream: The Zombies Documentary is an insightful and moving portrait of The Zombies, who first came to prominence in the ‘60s with such hits as “She’s Not There,” “Tell Her No” and “Time Of The Season.”

As the decades have passed, thanks to the rediscovery of their classic Odessey and Oracle album and a slate of strong new studio releases and a rigorous tour schedule, the band has seen its legacy and popularity blossom, culminating with the group’s induction into The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2019.

Read more about it (as well as an interview with founding member Colin Blunstone) here:  https://rockcellarmagazine.com/the-zombies-band-interview-colin-blunstone-documentary-2025/?utm_source=Rock+Cellar+Subscriber+Sign-Up+Popup&utm_campaign=2455da4696-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_8_26_2021_9_13_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_141dd5f77a-2455da4696-524395303&mc_cid=2455da4696&mc_eid=f8f75f98ed

Neil Diamond Performs 'Sweet Caroline' With 'A Beautiful Noise' Tour Cast in LA, July, 2025

https://youtu.be/-JXFotlaBSE?si=PRRXx6xAGOeFjOBf

We saw “Beautiful Noise” here in Chicago last year and were very disappointed … which is a shame, as I was really looking forward to it.  (My very first live concert was Neil Diamond at The Civic Opera House in 1970.)

“Sweet Caroline” is ruined forever for me … between the revelation of the Caroline Kennedy connection several years ago … and the “bom, bom, bom” sing-along that has now become part of the song lyrics … I can’t even listen to it anymore.  Another shame because at one time, I thought it was a great song.  (kk)

Reminder:  The $10 off per book offer on Rich Gardner’s WLS Survey books expires this Saturday (July 19^th)

Head on over to his website now and get those orders in!  (kk)

https://poptoptunes.com/

(The password is: wvetspoptop)

And, speaking of books …

The other day we told you about a new book that takes you inside The Record Plant.  Some of the greatest albums every made were recorded here …

And this is a chance for you to meet and visit with the authors … next Friday Evening, July 25^th, if you happen to be in the Sausalito area.  More details below.  (kk)

On Friday, July 25^th, at 5:30 PM, Sausalito Books by the Bay (100 Bay Street, Sausalito, CA) will host an event for veteran music journalists Martin Porter and David Goggins (aka Mr. Bonzai) for their recently published Buzz Me In: Inside the Record Plant Studios (Thames & Hudson). Buzz Me In comprehensively chronicles the rise of the recording studios that birthed dozens of classic albums, starting in 1968 when the first Record Plant opened in New York and soon thereafter in Los Angeles. The Sausalito Record Plant which opened in 1972 and was the space where Fresh by Sly and the Family Stone, Rumours by Fleetwood Mac, Songs in the Key of Life by Stevie Wonder, Prince’s debut For You, and many others were made.

For more about this new book, scroll back to our Sunday Comments Page dated 7-13-25.  (kk)

And finally, from Chuck Buell …

 

 

(He's got a point here!)  kk 

 

60 YEARS AGO TODAY:

Hard to believe today, but on July 17th, 1965, The Byrds were forced to cancel a concert during their UK tour at The Guildhall in Portsmouth when only 250 of the 4,000 tickets had been sold.