Connie Francis Page Editors Column

If you have emailed me with a question but I haven't responded, try again. Sometimes I get bogged down with other stuff. However, please leave a good email address. If your email is not valid or if it's incorrect, I can't respond. Also note that sometimes my ISP spam filters will block your message so make sure the subject header matches what is in your message.

May 19, 2010 UPDATE:

I will be at Vegas concerts May 21 and 22! In meantime, only updates I've done are links to pre-concert media events including Behar interviews, concert schedule, but I added volume two of articles by Guy Consterdine. He is a prolific writer with many interesting insights of Connie's career and the songs.

But I also have a lot of other updates such as concert reviews, photos, etc. so will be working on that as well.

A large 175K discography of Connie's albums is at "Discography Draft". Download at your own risk. It has not been proofed and there are numerous errors.

Usual song and dance:

The Connie Francis Page is designed to be compatible with all forms of web browsers (including those once used on the ENIAC). It is also designed so that people without computers can go to the library, locate and print a copy of this site. It has minimum graphics because graphics really slows the download time. Why people fill their sites with graphics is beyond me. Except for pictures of Connie, graphics are "hubcaps," useless ornamentation (thanks Don Arabian *).

I admit there is no update list or some form of configuration control process, and I'm not planning to make this web site ISO9000 certified (too much like work). I seem to be drowning in a sea of Connie Francis stuff (I love it). Papers, files, indexes everywhere. But I can take it, just send me more!

The Connie Francis Page will also be intended as a database for her songs, albums, CDs and upcoming concerts. Please be aware I'm not a professional at this and I don't get paid for it, so do not regard it as an official listing. I'm skeptical if I will succeed with a complete list because its just tooooooooooooo long. Readers may notice that some of the titles repeat, however, these are either re-issues or different versions. Although this does not mean much difference to many people, but for meticulous collectors these are big differences.

Much of the writings have not been proofed-read. In fact, a lot of it is first drafts. Y'know it's like I only got so much adinosine triphosphate. However, much skill and care has been used to avoid offending anyone, especially Connie Francis. So that is why I'm working the problems and not making things worse by guessing (thanks Gene Kranz *).

There are probably many HTML authors (or webpage programmers) wondering why in the heck the URL is listed on the page. When a page is saved to a computer or a hardcopy is printed, the source where it came from becomes lost (the HTML people will say no it doesn't but yet many of us are not going to be digging into the hard drive examining cache files). This feature becomes important if someone hands out copies of this page to others. Anyone with one of these copies will have the URL of the page.

People experienced in desktop publishing may have noticed the " and ' are not in smart quote forms. Apparently, real quotes and apostrophes don't translate well into the web browser. I'm not overly concerned about that at this point in time. For those of you wondering what the heck we are talking about, the " marks you see like on a typewriter are not quotes, they really mean inches. And ' means feet.

Readers have noticed that particular words do not have proper accent marks. Yes, I know these marks are important especially considering Connie has a huge global international following. I left the marks off because many web browsers cannot interpret these symbols so I decided to leave them off.

I'm sure people are wondering why this page is not loaded with lots of artsy-fartsy bells and whistles. Let me put it this way. People interested in Connie Francis want Connie Francis and her music, not computer stuff. That is why the background is white, the print is black. Try reading a page that is black background with dark blue letters. I wonder what these people are trying to hide and why they make it so difficult for the reader. Flash and dazzle takes time to construct something I don't have much of. With my years of experience (about 1 week before launching this site) of html and website construction I know many of you readers are having to deal with 9600 modems and flaky phone lines and I figure no sense in writing a Connie Francis page that no one can read.

There are two primary reasons I wrote this page. The foremost is to let people know that Connie Francis is still active. First, she is my favorite! Although years before I was familiar with Connie Francis, I had no idea about all she accomplished (before, I only knew of her as the singer who looks like Gina Lollobrigida and sang the title song, Where The Boys Are). I also didn't consider myself a "Connie fan" until about 1992. That year was when I accidently found one of her albums (Movie Greats of the 60s) while searching for ballroom dance music at a used record store. I noticed one of the songs was a foxtrot (Second Time Around) and many of these songs were ones I never knew Connie performed this kind of music. Wow, was my reaction. I went back and bought more of her standards, showtunes and 'nightclub' type songs. This woman is fantastic. Connie Francis has such a touching voice, she is the most wonderful, the most beautiful singer, and I really like her. I don't have a full collection but she is my favorite.

The second reason is that Connie previously did not have a dedicated webpage, especially considering today's global communications and Connie was already an international singer for many years. It was frustrating at times to find out more about her, especially good articles. I knew they were out there but I could not find them. And I knew many others did not know as well. When the web became of general public knowledge (it has been around for nearly 30 years in the computer world) and as soon as I learned html... wa la! The Connie Francis Page was created. Attending my first Connie Francis concert in 1996 and finding the fan club address also helped.

Another reason why I wrote a web page is because EVERYBODY ELSE HAS A WEB PAGE (this is actually a lie. Only 10% of the U.S. population have web browsing access and far fewer have their own sites). Now I finally got one! (well, actually its Connie's page). It's been really exciting because everything on this page is fresh, spontaneous, and to see at once what has been created. Everything is put together here in one place, and if you don't deliver a spectacular html file to the server, there is very little readers can do once its on the web. However, thirty years from now in the 2020's it will all be much easier for web writers. They can just throw it together anytime they want and it will be all properly formatted and just plain antiseptic, sterile and dull, dull, dull! But now I can be one to say that I participated in the early experimentation of the Internet (thank you Connie).

There has been some debate on how many different languages Connie Francis sings with. Some articles mention 11, others 9, and some 13. One listed 10. The numbers that I can be certain is that five is too few but 100 is too many.

One of the last paragraphs on the main page mentioned about every guy wanting to marry Connie. I admit this is a wide sweeping statement and pardon me if I put any men in a awkward situation of having to answer up to some questions from their wives or girlfriends.

And...
How is Connie Francis doing these days? Connie is doing just grand, regardless of the irresponsible garbage you may have read in the trash papers.

*Don Arabian and Gene Kranz have nothing to do with Connie Francis. I used some of their quotes in the same style that Connie has used in her autobiography of using quotes from other people to emphasis a point.