Pulp | Arts Around Ann Arbor

Connie Converse left Ann Arbor in 1974 and wanted to disappear, but her music was too unique to be forgotten

by Christopher Porter
Wed, 05/10/2023 - 12:45pm

MUSIC

Connie Converse sitting at a table playing her guitar. Black and white photo.

Connie Converse plays guitar and sings in a photo from the 1950s.

When Elizabeth "Connie" Converse was making music in New York City during the 1950s, her peers probably thought of her as a folk artist because she played acoustic guitar and sang songs.

But a new book makes the case for her being the bridge between folk music and what would come to be known as the singer-songwriter genre in the 1960s since she wrote her own songs using personal, poetic lyrics.

To Anyone Who Ever Asks: The Life, Music, and Mystery of Connie Converse by Howard Fishman also documents the musician's difficult life, which may have ended with her disappearance in 1974 at age 50.

Converse moved to Ann Arbor in 1961 to be closer to her brother, Philip E. Converse, a political science professor at the University of Michigan. She worked a variety of jobs and eventually became managing editor of the U-M Institute for Social Research's Journal of Conflict Resolution. When Yale took over the publication in 1972, the intensely private Converse's life started to drift and her depression increased.

Other than a 1954 appearance on the Walter Cronkite hosted The Morning Show on CBS, Converse's music career never took off, and it's thought she stopped playing music and writing songs after she moved to Ann Arbor.

Converse made reel-to-reel recordings in the 1950s, but her music wasn't released to the public until the 2009 compilation How Sad, How Lovely and the Sad Lady EP in 2020. Both releases garnered positive press for both the uniqueness of her sound and songs as well as the mystery behind the woman who made them.

With renewed interest in Converse's music and life, we've compiled numerous articles written about her over the years, including recent pieces covering the To Anyone Who Ever Asks book. Also below is the experimental film We Lived Alone: The Connie Converse Documentary, two brief video reports on her life, and embeds of her two records.

Walter Cronkite talks to Connie Converse on CBS's The Morning Show in 1954.