Connie Converse was a folk music genius. Then she disappeared

She continued to work on music throughout the 1960s, but at a slower pace, while taking on various jobs including as editor of the influential Michigan Conflict Resolution magazine. In letters to loved ones, written just before she disappeared, she said she struggled in life “to find a place to connect with”.

What happened to her when she disappeared remains unknown – in 2023 To Anyone Who Asks: The Life, Music, and Mystery of Connie Converse, the definitive biography of her, author Howard Fishman writes of how some believed she drove her car off a cliff in Canada, while others claimed she started a new life in Brazil.

Whatever the truth, Converse’s never-resolved disappearance certainly provided her music with an extra point of excitement when it came to public attention decades later. In 2004, the late producer Gene Deitch made her debut on WYNC Radio with some of her songs he recorded at private dinner parties in 1954 and 1955, creating a wave of interest in this musical mystery, leading to the 2009 release of “How Sad, How Lovely.” The album also contains bedroom recordings made by Connie, punctuated by endearing nervous coughs. Now the vinyl reissue comes at a time when Connie’s stock is particularly high, especially after a recent glowing Pitchfork review and coverage of her songs by everyone from Karen-O to Bill Callahan over recent years.

“At first I thought this Converse Converse figure had to be a trick or a gimmick,” laughs author Fishman, who is also a bandleader. “These songs were too new, too modern, and too outdated to have been recorded in the 1950s.”

Why was her music ahead of its time?

Converse grew up in Concord, New Hampshire in a right-wing Christian family, where alcohol and discussion of sex were prohibited. [her dad was proudly part of the pro-prohibition Anti-Saloon League of New Hampshire]. Her music provided a raw autobiography of her time escaping this strict upbringing and living freely in New York City. She was also bravely trying to make female promiscuity and sexual empowerment less taboo.