1. Connie Converse 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.
21 Facts About Connie Converse
1. 2.
In 1974, Converse left her family home in search of a new life and was not seen or heard from again.
3.
Connie Converse was born in Laconia, New Hampshire, on August 3,1924.
4.
Connie Converse 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.
5.
Connie Converse attended Concord High School, where she was valedictorian and won eight academic awards, including an academic scholarship to Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts.
6.
Connie Converse first lived in Greenwich Village, then in Hell's Kitchen and Harlem.
7.
Connie Converse started calling herself Connie, a nickname she had acquired in New York.
8.
Connie Converse began writing songs and performing them for friends, accompanying herself on guitar.
9.
Connie Converse began smoking and drinking during this time, behaviors contrary to her religious upbringing.
10.
In 1954, Connie Converse was encouraged by a friend to perform at a music salon hosted by the graphic artist and audio enthusiast Gene Deitch, who recorded the performance.
11.
Connie Converse's only known public performance was a brief television appearance in 1954 on The Morning Show on CBS with Walter Cronkite, which Deitch had helped to arrange.
12.
Connie Converse worked in a secretarial job, and then as a writer for and managing editor of the Journal of Conflict Resolution in 1963.
13.
Connie Converse's family noted that Connie relied more heavily on smoking and drinking towards the end of her time living in Michigan.
14.
Connie Converse's mother requested that she join her on a trip to Alaska, and Converse grudgingly agreed.
15.
Around that time, Connie Converse was told by doctors that she needed a hysterectomy, and the information appeared to have devastated her.
16.
Connie Converse was expected to join an annual family trip to a lake, but by the time the letters were delivered, she had packed her belongings in her Volkswagen Beetle and driven away, never to be heard from again.
17.
Connie Converse spent many years after being a performer as an activist writing memos like Connie Converse's "FEDD" Memo Against Racism and publishing her thoughts on the House Un-American Activities Committee.
18.
Connie Converse lost her job when the institute landed in the cross hairs of the anti-Communist House Un-American Activities Committee.
19.
Deitch played some of the recordings of Connie Converse he had made on a reel-to-reel tape recorder, including her song, "One by One".
20.
In March 2009, How Sad, How Lovely, containing 17 songs by Connie Converse, was released by Lau Derette Recordings.
21.
In 2017, John Zorn's Tzadik Records released the album Vanity of Vanities: A Tribute to Connie Converse, featuring new recordings of her songs by performers including Mike Patton, Petra Haden, Karen O, and Laurie Anderson.