This series officially picks back up at the end of the month and we’ve got another guest article. We will continue over the next few months with more writers lined up. So consider this post a bit of a host‑ile takeover. In doing research for some up coming posts focused on women as Singer Songwriter’s I came across a name I had never heard before. I don’t think you have either.
One listening that stopped me in my tracks was Connie Converse (as heard in the clip above). She was born Elizabeth Eaton Converse in 1924 in Laconia, New Hampshire, she quietly emerged in New York during the 1950s. She is a remarkably early example of the template of the ‘modern’ singer‑songwriter. So what do I mean by that? No one before Dylan had such a bold approach and confidence about their own original compositions. Dylan’s idol Woody Guthrie composed amazing and timeless songs but surrounded himself in Traditional music. As did Pete Seeger. They wanted to Dylan to follow that path and his first two albums had some of those Traditional songs. But that was not his idea. He had something to say, and he was going to say. And he did.
Now I know there are many women of note that sang and played guitar, from the Folk Blues of Elizabeth Cotten to the Greenwich Village scene with Odetta and Joan Baez. Could they compose songs, yes but they followed the more traditional approach of doing old songs, spirituals and covers. Mostly of Dylan songs.
All we have from her are home recordings. So they are quite rudimentary in that sense. But the sound quality is very good. Listening to them now, it’s hard not to be struck by how fully formed her songwriting already was lyrically, emotionally, and musically. This at a time when that kind of independence was almost unheard of. And in the mindset of the time “especially for a woman”.
In the 1950s, Converse worked in the printing industry and lived in several New York neighbourhoods, including Greenwich Village. She went by “Connie” and shared her songs mostly in informal settings at friends’ apartments, small gatherings or living rooms. Her lifestyle which included smoking and drinking, caused tension with her very traditional family But there’s a recording from 1952 that shows her performing for her parents in her own apartment. A few years later, a friend invited her to do a taped salon performance, and she even appeared briefly on national television. In 1956, she recorded the only known collection of her songs with a recording engineer by the name of Gene Deitch.
The songs themselves are many things; stunning, intimate, thoughtful, and quietly devastating. Adjectives we would use for Joni Mitchell and Janis Ian. And yet, at the time, the songs went nowhere. No label interest, and she gained no real momentum. Eventually Converse left New York, moved on, and settled into work as a writer and editor in Ann Arbor. By the mid‑1970s, she had disappeared from public life altogether. Her music wasn’t rediscovered until decades later, and today there’s a documentary available online that helps piece together her story. Looking back, it’s hard not to wonder about timing. Converse’s songwriting feels perfectly aligned with what would soon become celebrated, and yet she missed that moment entirely. The contrast between the quality of her work and the indifference it received remains one of the mysteries of the Greenwich Village Folk scene. In my opinion – she is perhaps not an uncommon and tragic causality, but at least this time we have some of her music.
This link above is an ‘album’ of her work (1956) but it was not released until 2009, titled How Sad, How Lovely. Forgotten to time but Connie is an early template of what we think is a Singer Songwriter. I have a very short clip about her below. Her work resurfaced after an old friend talked about her on Public Radio in 2004. Since then her music has started to make an impact on many women. To name just one, Karen O – of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, has very high praise for the compilation album How Sad, How Lovely. .
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