[HN Gopher] Connie Converse was a folk-music genius. Then she va...
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Connie Converse was a folk-music genius. Then she vanished
Author : mellosouls
Score : 105 points
Date : 2026-04-15 09:24 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| mellosouls wrote:
| Pitchfork review from last year:
|
| https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/connie-converse-how-sad...
| Teever wrote:
| 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
| js2 wrote:
| 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
| slibhb wrote:
| Talkin' Like You is incredible
| comrade1234 wrote:
| 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
| Blackthorn wrote:
| 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.
| chipotle_coyote wrote:
| I have her album "No Mermaid" and wondered what happened to
| her. It's a great album.
| Loughla wrote:
| 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.
| jhbadger wrote:
| 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...
| speak_on wrote:
| Oh wow, Crickets is an incredible track. Never heard of her
| before.
| dn3500 wrote:
| 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.
| ilamont wrote:
| What year was this?
| speak_on wrote:
| 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.
| dn3500 wrote:
| 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.
| Loughla wrote:
| 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.
| msaltz wrote:
| 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"
| scarecrowbob wrote:
| 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.
| speak_on wrote:
| 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.
| flir wrote:
| 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...
| Vaslo wrote:
| 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.
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