“Some believed she drove her car off a cliff in Canada. Others claimed she started a new life in Brazil”: She was a pioneering singer-songwriter who disappeared without a trace – now 50 years on, Connie Converse is finally getting her dues

Connie Converse playing her acoustic guitar.

Elizabeth “Connie” Converse may not be a household name, but the singer-songwriter who wrote the large majority of her songs in 1950s New York – the bedrock of the singer-songwriter movement later spearheaded by the likes of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez – was years ahead of her time.

Using a Crestwood 404 reel-to-reel tape recorder and a humble Regal acoustic guitar, Converse transformed into a guitar-based storyteller after moving to Greenwich Village, a world away from her small-town New Hampshire roots.