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Connie Converse
American musician (born 1924)
Elizabeth Eaton Converse was an American singer-songwriter, best known under her professional name Connie Converse. She was active in New York City in the 1950s, and her work is among the earliest known recordings in the singer-songwriter genre of music in the U.S.
Before and after the period in which she wrote her music she was an academic, writer, and assistant editor for the Far Eastern Survey, and editor for the Journal of Conflict Resolution.
Converse was born on August 3, 1924, in Laconia, New Hampshire. She was raised in Concord, New Hampshire, as the middle child in a strict Baptist family; her father was a minister and her mother was "musical", according to music historian David Garland. Her elder brother by three years was Paul Converse; her younger brother by five years, Philip Converse, became a prominent political scientist.
During the 1950s, Converse worked for the Academy Photo Offset printing house in New York's Flatiron District. She first lived in Greenwich Village, then in Hell's Kitchen and Harlem. She started calling herself Connie, a nickname she had acquired in New York. She began writing songs and performing them for friends, accompanying herself on guitar. She began smoking and drinking during this time, behaviors contrary to her religious upbringing. Possibly as a result of her changes in behavior, her parents rejected her music career. It was thought that her father never heard her sing, but a tape recording of a family visit in 1952 reveals that Converse sang for her father and mother in her apartment in Grove Street, New York.
In January 2004, Deitch—by then 80 years old and having lived in Prague since 1959—was invited by New York music historian David Garland to appear on his WNYC radio show Spinning on Air. Deitch played some of the recordings of Converse he had made on a reel-to-reel tape recorder, including her song "One by One". Two of Garland's listeners, Dan Dzula and David Herman, were inspired to track down any additional recordings of Converse. They found two sources for Converse's music: Deitch's collection in Prague, and a filing cabinet in Ann Arbor containing recordings which Converse had sent to Philip in the late 1950s. In March 2009, How Sad, How Lovely, containing 17 songs by Converse, was released by Lau Derette Recordings. That same month,...
Connie Converse is an American musician who was primarily active in New York, NY in the 1950s. Since 1974, her whereabouts have been unknown.
Born in Laconia, N.H., on Aug. 3, 1924. Her father was a minister, and her mother ran a strict Baptist household. She was the middle child, with two brothers: Paul, nearly three years older, and Phillip, four years younger. In 1974, she placed her meager belongings into her Volkswagen Beetle, left behind a batch of goodbye letters and vanished, entirely.
Also known as: Elizabeth Converse, Elizabeth "Connie" Converse, Elizabeth Eaton Converse, Elizabeth »Connie« Converse, e.e. converse
From Discogs (free to use). Their entry
Liner notes
Connie Converse, the records, oldest first
Connie's Piano Songs
2014 album
Sad Lady
2020 ep
wanted
Records from MusicBrainz; covers from the Cover Art Archive.
