“A female Bob Dylan”, he said of her

August 25, 2024 1:36 PM

To Anyone Who Ever Asks is a widely lauded biography by Howard Fishman of musician Connie Converse, which came out last year. Not everyone liked it, with dissenting voices including her nephew and Joyce Kittenplan on her Substack The Ambiguities [archive link]. Inspired by these reviews, and their own frustrations with the biography, folklorists and musicians Sophie Abramowitz, Sarah Bachman and Emily Hilliard started the podcast The Female Bob Dylan, whose first episode is devoted to Connie Converse. Future episodes will be dedicated to other musicians who’ve been dubbed “the female Bob Dylan”.
posted by Kattullus (9 comments total)

came here for cate blanchett ... not disappointed
posted by HearHere at 1:51 PM on August 25 [2 favorites]

Thanks for posting. I know and love her music but didn't know about this book or any of the reactions. I always wonder what happened to her.

Although quite different, she is twined in my head with Peter Kelley, another folkie who made one brilliant album, one other mediocre album, and then completely vanished.
posted by SystematicAbuse at 1:55 PM on August 25 [1 favorite]

Converse, Previously

posted by chavenet at 2:02 PM on August 25

Connie Converse has several beautiful songs. The fact that she owned her own reel-to-reel tape recorders and did some early overdubbing on them makes her sound so 'indie diy' in a way, even though she was working 40 years before those labels had any meaning.

Also, she has such great, hilarious, coy cunnilingus-innuendo tunes to boot!
posted by umbú at 2:49 PM on August 25 [3 favorites]

The episode of the podcast Criminal about Connie Converse, "If I'm Long Unheard From", was mentioned in the previously, but not linked.
posted by cyranix at 3:03 PM on August 25 [2 favorites]

I just wanna know how many of these "Female Bob Dylans"were labeled as such because they were producing nice little folksy story-songs, and how many were labeled as such because they shared Dylan's tendency to sing entirely through their nose.
posted by egypturnash at 3:46 PM on August 25

Like if Fran Dreschler started singing, would her generally nasal delivery get her dubbed a FBD even if she was fronting a metal band?
posted by egypturnash at 3:48 PM on August 25

I definitely called Courtney Barnett "the female Bob Dylan" in a text to my friend after I saw her play a couple years back so she's apparently got my vote
posted by potrzebie at 6:13 PM on August 25 [2 favorites]

Dylan? Courtney Barnett is the new Mark E Smith.
posted by pxe2000 at 2:57 AM on August 26