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.
Connie's Country
"Connie's Country" was recorded at the RCA Victor Studio in Nashville, Tennessee, between February 1967 and December 1968. The album consisted of twelve tracks of newly recorded material by Smith. Some of songs on the album were cover versions, including Perry Como's "Seattle", Merle Haggard's "Today I Started Loving You Again", and Marty Robbins's "Ribbon of Darkness". The album was released on a 12-inch LP album, containing six songs on each side of the record. The album was reviewed by Allmusic, which gave it a rating of four and a half out of five stars, a higher rating than her previous two albums in 1968 ("I Love Charley Brown" and "Sunshine and Rain"). In addition, unlike any of Smith's previous albums, none of the songs were written by Bill Anderson or Dallas Frazier, who had written many of Smith's previous hits.