| Connie Francis sings "Never on Sunday" | ||||
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| Studio album by Connie Francis | ||||
| Released | October 1961 | |||
| Recorded | August 10 and 11, 1961 | |||
| Genre | Pop | |||
| Label | MGM | |||
| Producer | Arnold Maxin | |||
| Connie Francis chronology | ||||
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Connie Francis sings "Never on Sunday" (full title as on cover: Connie Francis sings "Never on Sunday" and Other Title Songs From Motion Pictures) is a studio album of songs from motion pictures recorded by U. S. Entertainer Connie Francis:
The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico. The State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U.S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The extremely diverse geography, climate, and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.
Connie Francis is an American pop singer and top-charting female vocalist of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Although her chart success waned in the second half of the 1960s, Francis remained a top concert draw. Despite several severe interruptions in her career, she is still active as a recording and performing artist.
Contents
- "Anna" (a. k. a. "El bayon", a. k. a. "El negro zumbón") from the 1951 film Anna
- "April Love" from the 1957 film April Love
- "Around the World" from the 1956 film Around the World in 80 Days
- "High Noon" (a. k. a. "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin'") from the 1952 film High Noon
- "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing" from the 1955 film Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing
- "Love Me Tender" from the 1956 film Love Me Tender
- "Moonglow" and "Picnic", a medley of the pop standard "Moonglow" and the theme from the 1955 movie Picnic
- "Never on Sunday" from the 1960 film Never on Sunday
- "Tammy" from the 1957 film Tammy and the Bachelor
- "Three Coins in the Fountain" from the 1954 film Three Coins in the Fountain
- "Where Is Your Heart (Song from Moulin Rouge)" from the 1952 film Moulin Rouge
- "Young at Heart" from the 1954 film Young at Heart
"El Negro Zumbón" is a baião song written by Armando Trovajoli in 1951 for the film Anna, directed by Alberto Lattuada and starring Silvana Mangano.
Anna is a 1951 Italian melodrama film directed by Alberto Lattuada and starring the same trio as Bitter Rice: Silvana Mangano as Anna, the sinner who becomes a nun; Raf Vallone as Andrea, the rich man who loves her; and Vittorio Gassman as Vittorio, the wicked waiter who sets Anna on a dangerous path.
"April Love" is a popular song with music by Sammy Fain and lyrics by Paul Francis Webster. It was written as the theme song for a 1957 film of the same name starring Pat Boone and Shirley Jones and directed by Henry Levin.
The album was recorded on August 10 and 11, 1961, at Owen Bradley's studio Bradley Film & Recording in Nashville. Arrangements were provided by Cliff Parman who also conducted the sessions. Background vocals came from Millie Kirkham and The Jordanaires. [1]
William Owen Bradley was an American musician and record producer who, along with Chet Atkins, Bob Ferguson, Bill Porter, and Don Law, was one of the chief architects of the 1950s and 1960s Nashville sound in country music and rockabilly
Millie Kirkham was an American singer who was featured on many classic hit recordings from the mid-1950s through the 1980s.
The Jordanaires were an American vocal quartet that formed as a gospel group in 1948. They are known for providing background vocals for Elvis Presley, in live appearances and recordings from 1956 to 1972. The group has also worked in the recording studio, on stage, and on television with many other country and rock and roll artists.
Francis first collaboration at Bradley Film & Recording with Parman, Kirkham, The Jordanaires and Owen Bradley's team of musicians(resulting in her first use of the Nashville Sound) had taken place in January 1961 when recording Let the rest of the world go by (which would remain unreleased until 1996) and Someone Else's Boy . [2] The latter was released as a single in the U. S. A. and failed to make the charts. But the international impact of the song was enormous. Francis recorded it in seven other languages, and with the exception of the Dutch version - which remained unreleased until 1988 [3] - all foreign-language versions reached at least the Top Twenty in their respective countries, the German version even topping the Munich charts for several weeks, giving Francis her biggest German hit to date. [4]
The Nashville sound originated during the mid 1950s as a subgenre of American country music, replacing the chart dominance of the rough honky tonk music which was most popular in the 1940s and 1950s with "smooth strings and choruses", "sophisticated background vocals" and "smooth tempos". It was an attempt "to revive country sales, which had been devastated by the rise of rock 'n' roll."
"Someone Else's Boy" is a song written by Hal Gordon and Athena Hosey. It was recorded by Connie Francis on January 31, 1961, in New York.
In the music industry, a single is a type of release, typically a song recording of fewer tracks than an LP record or an album. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, a single is a song that is released separately from an album, although it usually also appears on an album. Typically, these are the songs from albums that are released separately for promotional uses such as digital download or commercial radio airplay and are expected to be the most popular. In other cases a recording released as a single may not appear on an album.
In the wake of this success, Francis returned to Nashville several times to record further singles and albums with Bradley's highly prolific team of musicians and arrangers until her contract with MGM Records ended in 1969. [5] "Connie Francis sings 'Never on Sunday'" was the first of these album projects to be released. Another album, "Connie Francis sings Folk Song Favorites", had been recorded two days before on August 8 and 9, 1961 but was released later.
MGM Records was a record label started by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio in 1946 for the purpose of releasing soundtrack albums of their musical films. It soon transitioned to a pop music label which continued into the 1970s. The company also released soundtrack albums of the music for some of their non-musical films as well, and on rare occasions, cast albums of off-Broadway musicals such as The Fantasticks and the 1954 revival of The Threepenny Opera. In one instance, it even released the highly successful soundtrack album of a film made by a rival studio, Columbia Pictures's Born Free (1966).
