Connie Converse was a folk-music genius. Then she vanished | Hacker News Reader

Connie Converse was a folk-music genius. Then she vanished

bbc.com

111 pointsmellosouls24 comments

I'm not familiar with this writer. I'm not surprised- I know many hundreds of fairly good writers who live and die, many without recording much of their work. It's not at all uncommon in this world.

What is rare is that there is a good enough story to some company think re-releasing a record might get some interest.

For about 15 years, I stage managed the New Folk competition at the Kerrville folk festival. It was pretty impressive to see 24 singer songwriters (selected from a poool of 600-1000 or so) all play over the course of 2 concerts, bringing whatever they thought was their best material.

Even weirder was going to Folk Alliance this year and running into all these folks who are slightly familiar... "oh, yeah, I remember you- I put a mic in from of you for 3 songs, 8 years ago".

Of the 800 or so songs I have heard there over the years most were as good as anything I hear outside these little folk music spots.

I know a solid 100 or so folks who put out an album of good work and then went on to live their lives. It's such a hard thing to make money off it that our time gets spent up doing all of the many, many other things in life that are compelling but pay better.

Still, if you look, you'll find folks who are out there writing songs to play. Even better, they are still alive and get really happy when you give them some cash for a tip.

In my teens I was really into '60s and '70s counterculture and spent most of my nights looking up music from that era. Among all the lesser-known gems with surprising longevity (e.g. Tractor), there were hundreds - if not thousands - of bands with only one or two albums. A few times I was so fascinated by these short-lived bands that I looked up the musicians and reached out to them on Facebook (in its early days). All of them responded and were surprised and happy to chat about their band. And yeah... they just live "normal" non-musician lives now.

I'm really surprised that you're that deep into folk and have never heard of Connie Converse. She's turned up on my radar multiple times over the past couple of decades, and I don't go looking for her, or much folk content.

I guess it underlines that we all live in filter bubbles - I had assumed she was more well-known than she really is based on news stories like this. Every other artist mentioned on this page? I've never heard of them. Off to youtube...

Well, to be fair, I don't listen to a lot of recorded music, and while I hear a lot of music it's mostly in whatever circles I am in.

For instance, I learned "Big Cheesburgers" by Blaze Foley picking bass on stage during a performance at a winery long before I ever heard a recording of him playing it. Same with, say Chick Pyle's "Jaded Lover" or Nancy Griffth's "I Wish it Would Rain" or, for that matter, Rodney Crowell's "I Wish It Would Rain". Those are all folks I either met in passing or knew folks who knew them well.

So while I have a pretty deep familiarity with music from folks with Texas connections, I don't know a whole lot of stuff outside of that area unless there is a connection to my proximately local folk festivals... David Amram or Stan Rodgers or Trout Fishing in America for instance.

I don't think I am unique in that approach to folk music. A lot the lineage of that stuff is mostly people playing in song circles or in small performances picking up a song from someone else, who in turn picked it up from someone, going back to Leadbelly or whoever.

I like recordings- it's super frustrating to hear a song and then not be able to find it anywhere. Especially if I want to learn it and add it to the other 400 or so songs I have memorized at any time, or go back and re-learn something.

Bubbles are real, but I am okay with them because in a certain sense that's what it means to be in a community. But communities aren't usually fragile like bubbles, and folks can come and go without gatekeeping, so that seems closer to how I think about these systems for knowing about folks.

I knew her in Ann Arbor. By then she had stopped performing but I heard her play a couple of times at my uncle's house. I now wish I'd paid closer attention, I was just a stupid teenager at the time.

What year was this?

Fascinating! Did her music feel different from other musicians at the time? Listening to some of her songs now, it's hard not to feel like she was way ahead of her time. Though that could just be hindsight talking.

That's why I wish I'd paid closer attention. If she played her own compositions, I wasn't aware of it. My aunt and uncle were both serious amateur musicians and often had people over to play music. It's more likely they played popular or folk songs that the other musicians would have known. To answer your question, no, she was just another musician in my uncle's circle. I remember her because they worked together, not because of her music.

That's an amazing experience even if you couldn't recognize it at the time. That's legitimately cool, and you can say you were in the room with genuine once in a lifetime talent. Not everybody has that experience.

I saw Dave Matthews play a very small show (like 30 people were there maybe) when I was younger while we waited for change to make a phone call. I didn't really pay attention, but remember thinking that this guy was really weird and really different and really really good. I wish I had stayed for the entire thing and maybe talked to him. But, at least the memory is there.

Roving Woman is my favourite song of hers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAfUXna0N-4

This cover is pretty spectacular:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFazlnIxHmE

It's the first song mentioned in the article, but oddly no link to a performance. There's links to two other of her songs. The cover is lovely, as is the rest of that artist's music.

Gosh, "Talkin' Like You (Two Tall Mountains)" is heartbreaking:

https://youtu.be/W3IfRX3NwbA?si=BTC9teo4q0BH5DE5

Talkin' Like You is incredible

Being a musical genius doesn't matter if you don't have a good way to market yourself.

That's why record companies traditionally did so well.

There are countless incredible works of art out there that almost nobody will ever see or hear. Most of it probably hasn't even been publicly shared.

I just watched a yt video of a guy who goes and looks for YouTube videos with zero views that are old. I thought that would make a great art project. I'm sure someone will eventually do it

I love her. Listening to her album sounds like you’ve opened a time capsule that’s been left undisturbed for years. It’s so unique and the lyrics are so lovely. Talkin’ Like You is my favorite.

“I don’t stand in the need of company / with everything I see talkin’ like you”

Pitchfork review from last year:

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/connie-converse-how-sad...

Very interesting find. Her music is on Spotify. Not my kind of music but definitely has a periodic feel to it and can put you some place else in time.

Lots of stories like this. My favorite is Judee Sill - disappeared, died of an OD pretty much penniless. Music ahead of its time with layered recordings, rediscovered decades later...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judee_Sill

My favorite is, fortunately, a lot less depressing. Sinead Lohan, right on the cusp of making it big, touring with some of the biggest names in folk at the time. Realized she didn't like the music industry so she stopped and retired right then and there. I have no doubt she'd be a legendary folk name if she continued. Whatever It Takes is my favorite song by her.

I have her album “No Mermaid” and wondered what happened to her. It’s a great album.

Oh man. I always wondered what happened to her. She absolutely would've been huge if she had kept with it. And it probably would've destroyed her spirit.

Collie Ryan is mine. She did three albums in the 1970s and then basically disappeared. I became aware of her through the use of her (amazing) song "It's Gonna Rain" which was featured on the soundtrack of Computer Chess (2013), a very weird (but good) film that seems to be about a computer chess tournament in the 1980s but gets weirder.

https://www.spinmagazine.com/2013/07/collie-ryan-its-gonna-r...

Oh wow, Crickets is an incredible track. Never heard of her before.

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