The album consists of traditional Italian and Neapolitan songs (e. g. Santa Lucia) as well as then-current contemporary songs like Volare (Nel blu dipinto di blu) or Piove which both had risen to international fame after being Italy's entries to the Eurovision Song Contests of 1958 and 1959.

[1] To make the album appealing to both Italian immigrants as well as listeners not familiar with Romanic languages, Francis sang most of the songs bilingual in either Italian/English or Neapolitan/English.

Francis, who didn't learn to speak Italian and Neapolitan fluently until 1962, received assistance from a Berlitz teacher to achieve the correct pronunciation of the lyrics' Italian and Neapolitan lines.

[2] The album was recorded between August 22 and 27, 1959, at EMI's famous Abbey Road Studios in London[3] under the musical direction of Tony Osborne[4] and was released in November 1959.

It remains to this day as Francis' most successful album release.