Connie Converse (WFMT acknowledges the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of Justice, NamUs, for allowing us to reproduce this image. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this video are those of the speaker(s) and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice)
50 years after her disappearance, on a radio program in New York City, the ghostly voice of a forgotten folk singer captured the hearts of listeners once more. Her songs fit snugly within the realms of the great writers of the 1960s; historians count her among the first wave of true singer-songwriters that broke away from traditional folk music. By all means, she should have gone on to be a household name. Instead, she vanished, seemingly into thin air.
The tale of Connie Converse is perhaps one of the best examples in modern history of a talented artist being in the right place at the wrong time. As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of her birth, we ask ourselves what happened to this trailblazer? Why did she seemingly put out her own fire… and how did her music find its audience decades later?
Right Place, Wrong Time
If Connie Converse had stayed in Greenwich Village even a few months longer, this story might have looked very different. After almost a decade of trying to make inroads into the music industry, she packed her bags in January of 1961 - mere weeks before Bob Dylan moved into town. Her departure was just a few months shy of the peak of the folk music revival movement, one which would usher in the era of the singer-songwriter and catapult performers like herself to stardom.
Connie Converse was born Elizabeth Eaton Converse on August 3rd, 1924 in Laconia, New Hampshire. She was a relatively quiet child who took to learning with voracity. Her interests lay in many different places, leading her to become the valedictorian of her high-school class. Among those interests were music and writing: classical music at first, under the influence of her conservative family, but later music of different folk traditions. It was this curiosity that would eventually lead to her trying her luck in New York’s “folk music” neighborhood, Greenwich Village.
But the Greenwich Village of the 1950s, where Connie Converse cut her teeth, was very different from the 1960s. At this point, folk music fans were divided into two very staunch camps: the new and the old. The “folk revivalist” fans followed in the vein of Woody Guthrie - singers who did perform old folk tunes but also wrote their own songs, often commenting on social movements. There was also a contingency of more conservative fans for whom the word “folk singer” meant someone who learned and performed traditional music - certainly not someone who wrote their own material. Though many in Greenwich Village supported the rise of songwriters, the tension between both camps was impossible to ignore.
Converse was not too interested in conserving traditions - nor was she into fighting fascists, at least initially. She was an outwardly quiet individual, obedient and smart, who earned a full ride scholarship to Mount Holyoke. Yet evidently her curiosities about folk music proved to be too strong: after just two years, Converse dropped out of college and moved to Greenwich in pursuit of an artistic career.
Ahead of Her Time
Listening to How Sad, How Lonely, one of the most complete albums of Connie’s recordings, it’s striking how haunting and raw the material is. Converse strums deceptively intricate guitar parts, with lyrics that are witty, melancholy, and sometimes just plain mysterious. She makes us laugh with “Roving Woman”, her tongue-in-cheek reaction to stereotypes about single women; she invokes a strange sadness and bitterness in the harsh chords of “I Have Considered the Lilies”. Though the tunes are stripped down, it is obvious that they resonate: Connie’s tune “Talkin' Like You (Two Tall Mountains)” currently sits at a cool 4 million streams on Spotify.
The vast majority of Converse’s recordings were done “DIY” style, in the living room of cartoonist Gene Deitch. He was the host of music parties; after meeting Converse at one of these sessions, he became enchanted by her songwriting and encouraged her to record her songs. Converse used these recordings to approach music industry executives, yet she was never able to find any interest. For years, her audience remained a handful of artists in the living rooms she frequented. Even a brief stint on a morning television program, which Deitch helped to book, didn’t lead to much traction, Disillusioned with songwriting, Converse left the state and moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1961, where she quickly shifted into social justice work with an emphasis on conflict-resolution and police brutality. Converse reinvented herself almost completely, in a manner that seemed to bear little connection to her goals of the last decade. She began taking on more and more work - a novel, an academic job, an activist position - disregarding the deterioration of her mental and physical health.
The Disappearance
On August 10th, 1974, a week after her 50th birthday, Connie Converse drove out of Ann Arbor for the last time. She sent letters to her closest friends and family telling them not to look for her. No reports were made of her; her body has never been found. However, her brother Phillip couldn’t help but keep mementos of her work - articles, scholarships, letters, and even reel to reel tapes of some of those recordings she was never able to pitch. It is all that is left behind by this talented artist - born just a little too late to know her audience.
Many of the things that make Converse’s music appealing today were perhaps the same reasons her work wasn’t able to take off in the 1950s. Connie was a single woman, highly-educated, whose songs conveyed honesty and dark humor about feeling outcast, failed relationships, and general melancholy. Historian and author of the Converse biography To Anyone Who Ever Asks, Howard Fishman, muses that the mainstream music industry of the 1950s wasn’t interested in the sad musings of a woman they couldn’t mold into a marketable product, especially during an era of post-war security and increasingly optimistic mainstream music. 1950s folk singer and historian Ellen Stekert also reminisced on her disconnect with music trends and awkward manner of presenting herself, not the best for networking in a big city.
Then of course there were the health problems, mental and physical, which her closest family hypothesized took a toll. It seemed that, despite the best efforts of friends and family, Converse decided she needed to be alone. In her final letter written to her brother Philip, Converse wrote, “Human society fascinates me and awes me and fills me with grief and joy; I just can’t find my place to plug into it…So let me go, please; and please accept my thanks”.
A New Audience
In an era where people around the world report record high levels of loneliness and isolation, Converse’s music now strikes a chord. Authors have written books and articles about her; her music has been covered, recorded, and reimagined by a plethora of contemporary musicians such as Laurie Anderson, John Zorn and Hope Levy. In a touching full circle moment, this revival of Connie’s music was sparked by the very person who recorded her songs in the first place - Gene Deitch.
Deitch never gave up his belief in those songs that were recorded in his living room all those years ago. The big break occurred in 2004 when the cartoonist was invited onto David Garland’s WNYC radio program. Fifty years later, Connie’s music was finally in the right place at the right time: Deitch had brought along with him his own 1954 recording of her song One by One, which he pressed the DJ into playing. The broadcast sparked a curiosity about Connie Converse that grew into a flame. One of those listeners, Dan Dzula , even started a record label called The Musick Group - now dedicated to remastering and rereleasing Connie’s works.
Hear the works of Connie Converse reimagined for a large ensemble this Saturday, November 16 at 8:00 pm on Folkstage.
