Another powerful voice of the ballad genre has died at 87. We’re all sorry now.
As I mentioned in this MPSIMS post earlier in the year, she was the first female pop star, and sold over 100 million records. Yet so many people have never heard of her. She’s not even in the R&R Hall of Fame.
RIP, Connie. Am hoping one day you get the recognition you deserve.
She had quite a career, despite the misery that ensued after her rape. PTSD wasn’t a thing back then, so she was diagnosed incorrectly for things like bipolar disorder and medicated to the point of being barely functional. I think at one point they were considering having her institutionalized.
The first thing I thought when seeing the thread title was, “Stupid, Cupid! Stop pickin’ on me.” It’s been years since I’ve heard anything by Francis played on the radio, but I’ve heard “Pretty Little Baby” on TikTok videos within the last few months. I just listened to a few of her songs and they’re still pretty good. But it is said, like our pal Ozymandias, no matter how mighty we all fall into obscurity eventually.
I have to admit she makes me think of Connie Franklin from SCTV:
I feel a little guilty that this was the first thing which came to my mind too, though you can’t really appreciate it unless you remember the commercials in which she plugged her albums back in the '70s.
RIP, Connie. You will be missed. 
Wasn’t she on To Tell the Truth or What’s My Line?
Never mind.
Which, of course, keeps him from falling into obscurity!
At that: for me, Connie Francis brings to mind the scene in THE CRAFT where there prove to be two kinds of people: those who remember Connie Francis, and those who never knew…
I just read an interview with her recently about the sudden popularity of “Pretty Little Baby” on TikTok. She was quite pleased.
For a long period of time Connie Francis was the top-selling female recording artist on the planet. And this was long after the hits dried up. She recorded albums in a variety of languages: Italian, Irish, Spanish, English and even Yiddish. It was a bold, imaginative move and her career was extended by years.
The tragedies she endured in her life almost broke her spirit, but she fought back and lived a contented life in her later years. In the interview I read, she was very upbeat. The lady had guts!
I was never a big fan. With a few exceptions, her brand of schmaltzy Pop didn’t appeal to me. But I’ve always thought she should have been honored years ago by the R&RHOF, on the sheer number of hits she had alone. They’ve inducted many singers who leaned more toward Pop than R&R, some less deserving who had far fewer hits.
Maybe they’ll do the right thing and honor her posthumously.
Probably not.
Didn’t she also get electro-shock therapy? At the time it was the mental cure-all that lobotomies had been just a couple of decades earlier.
I know the definition of R&R has greatly expanded since the R&RHOF, but is she really anywhere near R&R? Why isn’t there a Pop Music HOF?
If Roy Orbison and Bobby Darin, both crooners, can be in the R&RHOF, then Ms. Francis certainly can.
Roy yes, Bobby no.
She’s immortalized in the saddest TV episode in history:
Was ABBA anywhere near R&R? Or Brenda Lee, Carly Simon, Dolly Parton, Etta James, Joan Baez, Mahalia Jackson, or Nina Simone? They were all fine performers in their respective genres, but I would call little of their music Rock & Roll.
I’m not busting on the women. They were just a few that came to mind. Nat King Cole could hardly be called a rock & roll performer either. I don’t object to any of those people being in the RRHOF, but if the definition is going to be so obviously loose, there’s certainly room for a singer who placed 16 songs in the top 10 and 35 in the top 40, three of which hit #1 Billboard, all in a six year period.
Long ago I gave up figuring out who qualifies be in the RRHOF. The Beastie Boys had one hit, and they got in, although I will acknowledge they were indisputably rock & roll performers.
You’re probably thinking of Arlene Francis, an actress who was a perpetual panelist on *What’s My Line," and no relation to Connie.
Exactly.
Francis was the first major star female vocalist during the “rock era,” and certainly should be in the Hall.
I half expect to see Wayne Newton nominated someday.
I’m sure you’re just being sarcastic. I love it.
Wayne Newton?
Nah. He never had any teen appeal and only had two notable hits, ten years apart, both out-and-out bland middle-of-the-road stuff. I never could understand his popularity. It must have all been old ladies.
One of his hits was called “Danke Shoen,” but we always knew it as “Donkey Shit.”