Interview by Jerry Osborne DISCoveries Magazine September 1991

"Even now, look at all the songs that became hits because they were names of places.  Kansas City, Detroit City,    By The Time I Get To Phoenix, I Left My Heart In San Francisco.  And then there are the names of people, which alsowere great for many hits.  When I heard Lipstick On Your Collar, within eight bars I knew it was a Top 10 song without a doubt, maybe even No.1.  So Howie, Neil and I have a meeting to decide what we're going to put on the other side of Cupid.  Neil says, "What do you expect here, a double sided hit?"  I said, "Yes, you can have a two sided hit.  Look at Elvis and the Platters."  So he says "What do you want us to write?"   I said, "A ballad because the other side is uptempo.  I'd especially likeone with the name of a person.  Look at these names.  Everytime somebody writes a song about a person, it's a hit."  So Neil says, "We know, she just wants to sing about Bobby (Darin)."  I said, "Don't get cute, Neil, it's not about Bobby.  I'm going to sing about Frankie.  Why? Because Frankie Avalon is one of America's hottest teenage idols.  So, I want to sing about him.  Now you guys have to write the song."   So Howie asks, "Happy or sad?"  I said, "Always sad, Howie, you know that teenage girls love to cry."  So that's how we would come up with these different ideas.  And that's how they wrote Frankie which was a huge hit.  In the New York area it was even bigger than Lipstick On Your Collar."

DISC: Neil's own version of Stupid Cupid appeared on his first LP, however, I assume he had not recorded it himself at this time.

Connie: "True, he still hadn't recorded it.  At that time Neil had a recording contract with RCA Victor for a year, but they couldn't come up with a song for him.  That night as he and Howie went home, on the way back to Brooklyn he wrote
"How I'd like to look into that little book, the one that has the lock and key, "because he had seen me writing in my diary earlier that night.  By the end of the night The Diary was written and that was Neil's first hit.

DISC: On your next single, you took Bobby's advice and dropped the "G".  You had Fallin' instead of "Falling".

Connie: "Exactly.  And I called Bobby, and asked what he thought of the test pressing?  He said, "You're imitating
Bobby Darin.  You didn't make that mistake on Stupid Cupid - you were yourself - now you're imitating me and it's not going to make it big.  It's not a Top10 hit.  He was right.

DISC: It was still a successful record.

Connie: "But it wasn't me.  It was an imitation of someone else.  And the lyrics were too sexy or then.  America wasn't buying sex; they bought the girl next door.

DISC: With My Happiness, you returned to doing a ballad standard.  Had you heard any of the late '40s versions of it, by, say, Ella Fitzgerald or the Pied Pipers?

Connie: "Not by them, but by Jon and Sandra Steele.  I found the song in a book called the Musicians Handbook.  I did the same thing with Among My Souvenirs.  I just made a list of every standard I thought could be a great rock and roll song.
Then I went out and bought the sheet music to all of them.  Not records that anyone else did.  i wasn't interested in other recordings.  I just wanted to know if any would make good roc and roll songs.  Some songs I think are just the greatest, like this Back On My Feet Again by Michael Bolton.  I'm the biggest Michael Bolton fan in the world.  I wanted to use that song as an opening number and I thought, "Wow, i can't wait to do this one. "I changed some of the lyrics and made it very personal, but then I didn't like the way I sang it.  So I didn't do that one.  So that's what I did.  Anyway, I would go through the book and find these standards.