Connie Converse is one of the great lost musical voices of the 20th century. “Lost” in the figurative sense, as a woman whose songs were ahead of her time in an era when her male counterparts more easily achieved fame in the nascent Greenwich Village folk scene; but also lost in the literal sense, when — at the age of 50 — she wrote goodbye notes to friends and family and vanished, never to be heard from again.
Connie was born in Laconia, New Hampshire in 1924. She was, according to her brother, a polymath genius, but dropped out of college to move to New York City. There she took up music, and — her biographer Howard Fishman writes — became “a master of the acoustic guitar,” writing tunes and lyrics that upend “the traditional format and subject of the song form.” Her efforts gained her the appreciation of musical connoisseurs, and in 1954 landed her an appearance on Walter Cronkite’s CBS morning show. And then… nothing. Her career stalled, and she put down her guitar and started devoting herself to the complex, piano-based art songs that form the basis of this chamber concert.
In 1961, she moved to join her brother in Ann Arbor, Michigan. There she continued to compose music, play casually with friends and family, work as an editor, and engage in political activism… until her disappearance in 1974.
Eventually, though, the world caught up with Converse’s music. In 2009 “How Sad, How Lovely,” an album of her recordings, was released, and it has been capturing the imagination of fans and recording artists ever since… including Ronnie Kuller and Emmy Bean, who have created newly-devised arrangements of some of Converse’s music.
~David Isaacson, March 21, 2023
The New York Times