In a letter written in the 1950s, she wrote about her older brother Paul’s mental-health issues, and the conclusion of his psychotherapist that: There’s little hard evidence as to what went on behind closed doors in the Converse household, but there are clues embedded in letters, in Converse’s diary, and in the recollections of others. Dancing, alcohol, card playing and even mention of the word “sex” were forbidden. Only religious and classical music were allowed in the house when they were growing up.
Their mother had been an accomplished pianist.
Their father had been a minister and was head of the local temperance society. She was born Elizabeth Eaton Converse in 1924, in New Hampshire, the second of three children. I have spent the past 13 years chasing Converse’s ghost, trying to nail down details from her shadowy story with the hope of gaining more attention for her extraordinary work. “I have dozens of fans all over the world,” Converse once quipped, her humour a mask for her disappointment that no one seemed to want what she had to offer. How Sad, How Lovely has been streamed more than 16 million times on the Spotify platform alone, and her songs have been covered by the likes of Big Thief and Laurie Anderson. It ignited a slow burn that has now become a bushfire. In 2009, her 1950s recordings resurfaced on an independently produced album called How Sad, How Lovely. She made these recordings in her kitchen in the 1950s, but she never found an audience for her music, and then one day she drove away and was never heard from again.” The room disappeared.Įventually, I sought out the host of the party, and asked what we were listening to. The traditional elements were so finely stitched together, with such a sophisticated sensibility, that the whole sounded absolutely original – modern, even. It had the openhearted, melodic feel of an old Carter Family recording, but there was also some gentle guitar fingerpicking that reminded me of Elizabeth Cotten, and harmonic movement that seemed to echo the songs of Hoagy Carmichael. A woman was singing in a plaintive tone about “a place they call Lonesome”. In 2010, I was at a friend’s party when a song came up on the house speakers – one that sounded both entirely new to me and as familiar as my own skin.
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