Comments on: Anyone Who Ever Asks

Anyone Who Ever Asks

kimdog — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 06:09:49 -0800

The Musical Mystery of Connie Converse
"To survive at all, I expect I must drift back down through the other half of the twentieth twentieth, which I already know pretty well, the hundredth hundredth, which I have only read and heard about. I might survive there quite a few years - who knows?"

This was the cryptic note Connie Converse left her family in 1974, and no one heard from her again. She had spent the 1950's in New York City, trying to promote her music- haunting, melancholy folk tunes, but never made a go of it. Her songs very nearly disappeared into the ether, but thanks to Lau derrete Records, her first album is now available to the public, fifty years after the songs were recorded. (via Spinning On Air)

By: HuronBob

HuronBob — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 06:32:34 -0800

Nice sunday morning post... thanks...

By: nosila

nosila — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 06:43:49 -0800

Does anyone know if the rest of the text of the letter is posted anywhere? I'm all ready to figure out what she meant.

By: Lipstick Thespian

Lipstick Thespian — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 06:45:19 -0800

I love this music! Great post Kimdog.

By: nosila

nosila — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 06:48:47 -0800

Yes, these are great songs. Who owns the rights to these, out of curiosity?

By: kimdog

kimdog — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 06:52:09 -0800

nosila... the SFgate article says that her brother, Phil, owns the rights. She specifically gave him copyright and control of all songs when she disappeared.

By: HuronBob

HuronBob — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 06:52:40 -0800

According to the article, she gave the rights to her brother.

By: footnote

footnote — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 07:37:21 -0800

Yes, these are great songs. Who owns the rights to these, out of curiosity? This can be a complex question, legally, with respect to the recorded songs. Songs recorded before 1972 generally do not have federal copyright protection. They are protected by state law, if at all. Under state law, sometimes ownership of the recordings goes to the producer rather than the artist, or was transferred along with the physical recordings themselves. So despite Converse's will, the recordings might belong to Gene Dietch, the person who recorded the songs and archived the tapes.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 08:47:46 -0800

An interesting story—thanks for the post!

By: Bageena

Bageena — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 10:25:58 -0800

It's obvious- she went to Denver.

By: rainy

rainy — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 14:24:57 -0800

Really good songs. You can preview part of each song on the album on amazon album page. She's like Nick Drake who likely committed suicide in the 70s; his songs were also sad and minimalistic, one of his albums is called Five Leaves Left, after the famous O'Henry short story.

By: rokusan

rokusan — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 15:18:13 -0800

It's obvious- she went to Denver. And now Denver is lonesome for her heroes.

By: jonp72

jonp72 — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 17:46:15 -0800

Yes, these are great songs. Who owns the rights to these, out of curiosity? I know people who reissue old recordings, and the issue of orphan works is a major problem. An orphan work refers to any work where the copyright holder is unknown or cannot be located. Although the Connie Converse tapes might not technically be an orphan work, the lack of clarity in the law in determining who actually owns the rights to Converse's work may make it a de facto orphan work. Our system of copyright law is so dysfunctional that often ownership is not awarded to the person whose claim on the intellectual property has the most merit but to whomever has the better lawyer. Thousands of musical works uncovered by collectors and researchers cannot get the niche audience they deserve, because the copyright law is so screwed up.

By: Faze

Faze — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 18:42:34 -0800

Her songs are wonderful! "Up in the tree, there's a kind of squirrel thing it sounds like we used to do, when we were quarreling."