The Exciting Connie Francis
After her breakthrough in early 1958 with her single "Who's Sorry Now?", a rock 'n' roll oriented version of the 1923 standard, and a subsequent album of the same title, Francis chose to take a more adult approach to her second album. For "The Exciting Connie Francis", she chose twelve American standards. Francis clearly marked the album as a concept album by dividing it into two sections with different moods: Side A is filled with songs differing between mid-tempo and up-tempo, while Side B consists solely of ballads.
Rough Francis
Rough Francis's first show was in Winooski, Vermont in 2008. Having enlisted two friends to fill out the band, they played seven of Death's songs for an enthusiastic crowd that included their own father and mother. The following year, Death's original 1975 recordings of these songs were released as "...For the Whole World to See" by Drag City, and Rough Francis supported the release by touring and continuing to play the songs live along with some original material. When an article in the "New York Times" moved Death from obscurity into the limelight, Bobby Sr. and Dannis Hackney reformed Death with Lambsbread guitarist Bobbie Duncan, and Rough Francis moved on to write, perform, and record more original music. They released a 4-song EP in March 2010, followed by their debut album, "Maximum Soul Power" in March 2013. The final track on the album, "Comm to Space," features recordings of their late uncle, David Hackney, making prank phone calls in the early 1970s using homemade analog delay effects.