Tuesday 6 November 2012

Connie Francis - My Happiness


On this day November 6, 1958 at Radio Recorders in West Hollywood, Connie Francis recorded "My Happiness," which became a A big hit for her in December 1958 - US CHART # 2 ( Cashbox) and #11 in the R&B CHART. UK Released Feb 1959, reached # 4.






 











 


"My Happiness" is a pop music standard which was initially made famous in the mid-twentieth century. An unpublished version of the melody with different lyrics was written by Borney Bergantine in 1933. The most famous version of the song, with lyrics by Betty Peterson Blasco, was published for the first time in 1948. The first known recording of this version was in December 1947 by the Marlin Sisters but the song first became a hit in May 1948 as recorded by Jon and Sondra Steele (Damon 11133) (#3) with rival versions by The Pied Pipers (Capitol 1628/ 15094)1 and Ella Fitzgerald (Decca 24446) entering the charts that June reaching respectively #4 and #8 with the Marlin Sisters version (Columbia 38217) finally charting with a #24 peak that July. "My Happiness" was one of two songs - the other being "That’s When Your Heartaches Begin" - that Elvis Presley recorded at his first recording session at the Memphis Recording Service (Sun Studios) in the summer of 1953.

 Connie Francis - whose favorite song at the age of eight had been the Jon and Sondra Steele version of "My Happiness" - remade the song in a 6 November 1958 session at the Radio Recorders studio in Hollywood, CA produced by Morton Craft and Jesse Kaye; David Rose conducted the orchestra. The song almost became Francis' first #1 hit in the first months of 1959 but was kept at #2 by another remake of a standard: the Platters' version of "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes". (Info mainly Wiki)

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