revival at a very young age,
I automatically thought this
must be from that era of
musicians, gleaming what-
ever they can from Harry
Smith ’s Anthology of Ameri-
can Folk Music.
But as the song winds up,
the guitar becomes more
intricate. In addition, the
voice is beyond anything I’ve
ever heard before. It is gentle
and soothing like the chime
of a wind-up snow globe, yet
there’s a fire burning under-
neath, an urgency to her
tone and lyrics that beg the
listener to lean in. A minute
in, the song kicks into high
gear, with elaborate picking
patterns, a faster tempo and
that voice jumping all over
the scales, pontificating on
the demure lifestyle of flow-
ers in the valley.
I’m spellbound. I close my
Google Doc and immediately
pine to know who this elu-
sive folk icon is. Maybe it’s a
modern-day contemporary
of Joan Baez, distorting the
recording to sound lofi and
InDiE. The song is “I Have
Considered the Lilies” from
the album How Sad, How
Lovely by Connie Converse.
The name alone casts me
back to middle school, where
I began my trend of always
wearing high top Converse
sneakers, despite their lack
of an arch that made my feet
ache constantly.
A quick Google search
shows Converse to be a folk
musician — my musical era
guess was correct— but from
earlier than Baez, Dylan
and the ’60s folk revival in general.
In using one of my 10 precious, free
monthly articles to find out more, the
essay “Connie Converse’s Time Has
Come” by music historian Howard
Fishman in The New Yorker paints
her as a leading pioneer in the sing-
er-songwriter movement of the late
’50s. However, few knew who she
was until the late 2000s. This con-
fuses me. How can a musician be a
pioneer without garnering a certain
amount of fame? However, the article
quickly informs me Converse walked
into obscurity, quitting music in 1961,
so the likes of Dylan, Baez and more
could run.
There are so many stories of fans
wanting to find their idols who don’t
want to be found. Luckily, if it was the
early ’60s and I was obsessed with
Converse as I am now, I wouldn’t
have to look very far to meet her. After
leaving New York in ’61, Converse
moved to Ann Arbor.
C
rucial to telling Converse’s
story is the acknowl-
edgement that she was
a remarkably talented learner —
adapting and achieving mastery in
anything she set her mind to. Hers is
also a story of what-ifs. As someone
encountering her story some 50 years
later, I read every crossroad Converse
encountered like a Choose Your Own
Adventure book. I want to tell her,
“Just stick it out, the folk revival is
around the corner! Don’t leave New
York just yet!” But history doesn’t
afford those privileges.
Born Elizabeth Eaton Converse in
1924, she grew up in Laconia, N.H.
and excelled in nearly every field of
academic study, eventually earning
the title of valedictorian of her high
school class. With a full-ride schol-
arship to Mount Holyoke College, a
private women’s liberal arts college in
South Hadley, Massachusetts, Con-
verse seemed destined to thrive in
higher education.
Wednesday, January 23, 2019 // The Statement
WORDS BY MATT HARMON, STATEMENT DEPUTY EDITOR
ART BY BREE ANDRUZZI, CONTRIBUTING ARTIST
On Connie Converse, considering the lilies
See CONNIE, Page 6B