Having a Mind of Your Own About 1960-1961

It took Debby Boone to make me appreciate Connie Francis musically.

That’s not a backhanded compliment. I never disliked Debby Boone as much as I was supposed to, even after “You Light Up My Life” went from being moody and kind of oddly interesting to inescapable and a subject of constant derision. Boone fled Top 40 within a year for Country radio, which I had just started listening to around that time, also an odd social choice for a 15-year-old, thanks to the launch of WMZQ Washington, D.C.

Debby Boone took hold at Country with a series of remakes, and that’s how I learned “My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own,” originally a 1960 hit for Francis. I knew Francis’s early rockers (“Lipstick on Your Collar,” “Stupid Cupid”) but she was defined for me musically by “Who’s Sorry Now” and “Where the Boys Are.” In the same way that “I’m Sorry” kept me from appreciating Brenda Lee for a while, Francis helped cement the early ’60s as “you had to be there” — one of those eras you could only appreciate if they’d been your high school years.

“My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own” might not be the record that brings you around on Connie Francis or her era. I share it knowing that it could easily come across as dated or off-putting to a new listener. But I think Phil Spector and his friends heard something in its denseness and high harmonies. Abba liked those things, too, and “My Heart … ” also contributed at least a little DNA to their “I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do,” more than 15 years later. 

“My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own” is not the record by which most people of working age or younger discovered Connie Francis. That would be “Pretty Little Baby.” I’ve been referring to that song as a 1962 album cut, but I’ve since learned that it was also a B-side (in the UK). But TikTok has now spread it so far and wide so that when Francis died last week, many obits began with “Connie Francis, known for hits like ‘Pretty Little Baby,’” something which was in no way true until two months ago.

As with Lee, I’ve come to appreciate Francis’s rockers, which I’d dismissed as trifling at the time. I’ve also come to rethink 1960-61. It’s very much a beginning-of-the-decades doldrums, when artists like Francis and Bobby Darin were suddenly making records for adult respectability, but it’s also a peak time for Roy Orbison and the Everly Brothers, the beginnings of Bacharach & David, a great period for instrumentals and novelties, and the beginning of “The Twist” party of dance hits. 

That Chubby Checker’s version of “The Twist” became the hit says a lot about the era, but Hank Ballard & the Midnighters had hits, and so did Bobby “Blue” Bland. As in the late ’00s/early ’10s “turbopop” era often written about here, the early ’60s became a moment when pop and R&B came together. Motown’s contributions to those years are sometimes bluesy (“Money”), sometimes poppy (Gordy’s Jackie Wilson-ish productions for Marv Johnson, picked up by a then-larger label), and sometimes both (“Shop Around”).

I’ve learned by now that there’s no era that can’t be cherry-picked, so prompted by Francis’ passing, I’ve created a playlist of (mostly) hits from 1960-61. How you view any artist from that era depends on whether you go for the rockers or the ballads, and I’ve mostly gone uptempo, except for a few undeniable titles. There are other early ’60s titles that I encounter, particularly on those online or small-market stations that take a “play everything” stance on the rock era, and a lot of the soft pop (i.e., Rick Nelson’s “Young World”) doesn’t fit well for me.

It says something about the era that I was originally planning to have this playlist cover 1960-63, but the first two years gave me more than enough music to work with. Besides, the years immediately preceding the Beatles are less easily dismissed. Not including 1962 means that “Pretty Little Baby” is not here (and you’ve heard that one enough lately anyway). But there’s still lots to discover or appreciate differently.