Elizabeth Eaton Converse (born August 3, 1924 – disappeared August 10, 1974) was an American singer-songwriter, best known under her professional name Connie Converse. A mysterious and deeply fascinating figure, she pursued her music in obscurity before vanishing completely from the face of the earth.
Converse was born Elizabeth Eaton Converse in Laconia, New Hampshire in 1924. She was raised in Concord, New Hampshire, as the middle child in a strict Baptist family; her father was a minister and her mother was "musical", according to music historian David Garland. Converse attended Concord High School, where she was valedictorian and won eight academic awards, including an academic scholarship to Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. Though Connie had not shown much interest in instruments since abandoning her violin lessons in middle school, she began to teach herself guitar.
After two years' study, she left Mount Holyoke and moved to New York City, where she worked for the Academy Photo Offset printing house in New York's Flatiron District. She first lived in Greenwich Village, then in Hell's Kitchen and Harlem. She started calling herself Connie, a nickname she had acquired in New York. She began writing and recording her own songs, often plaintively beautiful storytelling folk songs recorded in her small apartment or by friends. She began smoking and drinking during this time, behaviours contrary to her religious upbringing. Possibly as a result, her parents rejected her music career.
In 1954, Converse was encouraged by a friend to perform at a music salon hosted by the graphic artist and audio enthusiast Gene Deitch, who recorded the performance. Converse's only known public performance was a brief television appearance in 1954 on The Morning Show on CBS with Walter Cronkite, which Deitch had helped to arrange (unfortunately a recording of that appearance no longer exists). In 1956, she recorded an album for her brother Philip, Musicks (Volumes I and II). By 1961, Converse had grown frustrated trying to sell her music in New York. That year, she moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where her brother was a professor of political science at the University of Michigan. Converse all but abandoned her musical interests, instead she worked in a secretarial job, and then as a writer for and managing editor of the Journal of Conflict Resolution in 1963. She played music for friends at parties, but not much more besides that.
Around 1968–69, whist at the Institute of Pacific Affairs, Converse wrote a memo as a white member of People Against Racism, but lost her job when the institute landed in the cross hairs of the anti-Communist House Un-American Activities Committee. Her family noted that Connie relied more heavily on smoking and drinking towards the end of her time living in Michigan. By 1973, Converse was burnt out and depressed. The offices of the Journal of Conflict Resolution, which meant so much to her, had moved to Yale at the end of 1972 after being "auctioned off" without her knowledge. This affected her deeply and her life seemed to hold no purpose or interest for her. After she suffered a nervous breakdown her colleagues and friends pooled their money to give her a six-month trip to England in hopes of improving her mood, to no avail. Her mother requested that she join her on a trip to Alaska, and Converse grudgingly agreed.
Her displeasure with the trip appeared to have contributed to her decision to disappear. Around that time, Converse was told by doctors that she needed a hysterectomy, and the information appeared to have devastated her according to her brother. In August 1974, days after her 50th birthday, Converse wrote a series of letters to family and friends suggesting her intention to make a new life in New York City. Converse was expected to join an annual family trip to a lake, but by the time the letters were delivered, she had packed her belongings in her Volkswagen Beetle and driven away, never to be heard from again.
The events of her life following her disappearance remain unknown. Several years after she left, someone told her brother that they had seen a phone book listing for "Elizabeth Converse" in either Kansas or Oklahoma, but he never pursued the lead. About ten years after she disappeared, the family hired a private investigator in hopes of finding her. The investigator told them that even if he did find her, it was her right to disappear and he could not bring her back. After that, her family respected her decision to leave, and ceased looking for her.
In January 2004, her music was offered a public resurgence when engineer Gene Deitch played a then 50-year-old recording of her song "One by One" when he guested on New York music historian David Garland's radio show Spinning on Air. The song caught the ears of Dan Dzula and David Herman, who were moved to meet with Deitch and go through his archive to assemble a collection of her never-released songs. This collection materialized in 2009 as How Sad, How Lovely, a collection of 17 songs taken from various recordings that friends, family, and other Converse associates had preserved over the years. Her music finally reaching a broader audience, her uniquely intelligent maverick songs began to have an influence on a newer generation of folk and indie artists.
Johnny Kemp (August 2, 1959 – April 16, 2015) was a Bahamian singer, songwriter, and record producer. He began his career as a songwriter in late 1979 and is perhaps best known for his solo work, including his single "Just Got Paid" (1988), which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best R&B Song in 1989. His distinctive voice and rhythmic style helped him stand out in a crowded field of R and B performers during the 1980s, a decade known for its fusion of funk, soul, and emerging electronic production styles.
Kinky Foxx
Jonathan Kemp was born in Nassau, Bahamas. He began singing in nightclubs in the Bahamas at age 13. He moved to Harlem, New York with the band Kinky Foxx from 1979-1981. After going solo he developed a forte in writing songs for other artists and performed backup vocals for the B. B. & Q. Band on their 1982 album All Night Long (on which he co-wrote several tracks) and for Change on their 1982 album Sharing Your Love (on which he co-wrote "Take You To Heaven"). He also appeared on the obscure Network LP I Need You in 1984, where he had lead vocals on the song "Cover Girl", later re-recorded for his self-titled debut solo album.
Columbia Records gave him a record deal in 1985 and, through them, he released his first album, Johnny Kemp, in 1986. The album charted in the U.S. on Billboard's Top Black Albums chart, reaching No. 36 on June 28 of that year. It produced hit singles like “Just Another Lover,” “Can’t Get Enough,” and “Cover Girl.” Greater success came the following year with the release of his Secrets of Flying (1987) album, which contained a pair of Top 5 hits on Billboard′s Hot Black Singles chart, "Dancin' with Myself" and "Just Got Paid", the latter hitting No. 1. "Just Got Paid" hit No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the summer of 1988, and sold over a million singles in the United States.
It topped the Hot Dance Music/Club Play and provided his only UK Singles Chart entry, peaking at No. 68 in August 1988. Columbia initially offered the instrumental base for the song to Keith Sweat, who passed on it. Kemp listened to the track, wrote lyrics for it, and produced the hit track. His only other Hot 100 entry was "Birthday Suit", a tune from the soundtrack to the movie, Sing (1989), which climbed to No. 36 in 1989.
Following the release of his second album, Kemp’s visibility in the music industry waned. In the 90s Johnny Kemp and Sherry Goffin Kondor, the daughter of Carole King were the lead singers for the popular children's cover band Sugar Beats. The Sugar Beats featured The Broadway Kids members and Les Miserables (musical) stars Crysta Macalush Winton and Erin Rakow. Former Dream Street member and Summerland (TV series) star Jesse McCartney was a member of the Sugar Beats. The Reading Rainbow series on PBS featured its theme song sung by Kemp for a few years. After releasing "80s Greaties" the Sugar Beats broke up in 2009.
Sadly, Kemp died in a tragic accident in April of 2015, with his body being found off the coast of Montego Bay. He had been a passenger on a cruise ship that docked there, and he was scheduled to perform on the Tom Joyner Foundation Fantastic Voyage Cruise. According to the St. James Police, it’s believed Kemp lost his balance while walking on some rocks, fell, hit his head, and ultimately drowned. He left behind a wife, Deirdre Fisher-Kemp, and their two sons, one of whom, Jared Kemp, is an actor. Ultimately, Johnny Kemp’s passing marked the end of a life, but not the end of his musical impact. Through Just Got Paid, his voice continues to echo across generations, ensuring that his contribution to R and B and pop music history remains recognized and appreciated.
Bessie Tucker (c. 1906 – January 6, 1933) was an American classic female blues, country blues, and Texas blues singer and songwriter. She is known to have recorded 24 tracks, seven of which were alternate takes. Her songs include "Penitentiary" and "Fryin' Pan Skillet Blues".
Bessie Tucker was probably born in East Texas about 1906. Her exact birthplace and date have not been adequately determined or documented. Greenville in Hunt County, Texas, and Rusk in Cherokee County, Texas, have both been suggested as probable birthplaces. The researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc state, on the basis of her death certificate, that she was born in Rusk, Cherokee County, Texas, the daughter of Georgia (née Connor) and John Chris Tucker. The 1910 federal census recorded the family living in Hill County, where her father worked as a cook in a restaurant. Bessie was listed as age four and had two brothers.
Little is known about the life of Bessie Tucker beyond the few facts related to the music industry. Though she was slight in stature, her recordings reveal a powerfully dark voice. Tucker’s vocal style is best described as a folk variant on the field holler vocal music sung by African American slaves working in the fields and later by African American prisoners sentenced to forced labour. The field holler style is related to the call and response work songs prevalent among cotton and cornfield workers and on sugar and rice plantations. These vocalizations, from which early blues music was derived, served as an emotional outlet and expressed anguish and pent-up feelings. They also served a social purpose as well as represented a source of motivation in repetitive work.
In August 1928, she recorded a number of songs, most of which she wrote, for the Victor label in Memphis, Tennessee. She was accompanied on piano by the Dallas-born K. D. Johnson. This recording session yielded her best-known song, "Penitentiary". The subject of the song was reputedly not unknown to Tucker. A second session in Dallas followed in October 1929, at which she was again accompanied by Johnson and by the guitarist Jesse Thomas. Tucker’s blues are mesmerising – grainy, tough-minded songs of deceit, desertion and violence. In Penitentiary Blues she contemplates killing an uncaring man, while in Got Cut All To Pieces she threatens the woman who has stolen her lover. Fryin’ Pan Skillet Blues begins more cheerfully, with a cry of ‘Bring me some black-eyed peas!’, but she is in the kitchen to entice a man to sample her cooking. And Fort Worth And Denver Blues is a Texas train blues underscored by a piano part full of lonesomeness and impermanence.
After these recordings Tucker disappeared from performing, apparently for good; no data exists on the later events of her life except that the 1930 census recorded Tucker as living in her father’s household in Dallas, and her occupation was listed as “sales lady” for the Victrola industry. Only one photograph of Tucker has been identified. According to her death certificate, she died of pulmonary tuberculosis at Woodlawn Hospital in Dallas on January 6, 1933. The document stated place of burial as Woodland Cemetery but did not specify whether the graveyard was located in Dallas County. Some researchers have surmised that her burial site is in Woodland Cemetery in Red River County, Texas.
(Edited from Texas State Historical Association, Loudersound.com & Wikipedia)
Robert Brown (July 31, 1927 – May 1973), who performed as Smoky Babe, was an American acoustic blues guitarist and singer, whose recording career was restricted to a couple of recording sessions in the early 1960s.
Robert Brown aka Smoky Babe is a shadowy figure from the early days of the '60s folk-blues revival. The scant details of his life read like a prototypical country bluesman's bio; born in Itta Bena, Mississippi, raised on a plantation, had a hard life of sharecropping, picked up the guitar along the way, under the strong influence of Robert Petway and Tommy McClennan, seeing them performing and listening to their records.
He developed the same rhythmic guitar style, full of a furious energy, the similar passionate singing and, if one adds a great ability to compose autobiographic blues and to make every standard his own, you sure have with him a major bluesman!
Here's "Rabbit Blues" from above album
During the late 1940's and maybe at his mother's death, Smoky Babe leaves the miserable sharecropping to work in a factory in Alabama, then in New Orleans where he works as a longshoreman while playing sometimes in local clubs. Around 1953, he marries and the couple settles in Baton Rouge, buying a little farm and finding a good job as a car mechanic in a garage. He played at picnics and at local parties for friends and it's like that and only by chance that Harry Oster discovers him in February 1960 during a party at Robert Pete Williams' house (his neighbour) where there are other Robert Pete's neighbours, Lazy Lester, Clyde Causey or William and Sally Dotson!
Oster is stunned by Smoky's talents and then records him substantially during the following days. His brief recording career was limited to a pair of album-length releases recorded as "in the field" location sessions in 1960 and 1961 for the Folk Lyric and Bluesville and Storyville labels. His few recordings display a strong rhythmic sense in his guitar playing with a strong thumping bass line with the occasional foray into slide guitar. His vocals were nothing less than rich, strong and authoritative. Those wonderful records when issued on several albums and anthologies stir interest in the then small coterie of blues buffs in the USA and Europe.
Annie & Robert "Smoky Babe" Brown
But Smoky, quite suspicious, would turn down any offer to appear at colleges or festivals during the early 1960's, liking better to catch his steady work at his garage and his farm than trying his chance on a musical career. He seemingly disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again. Other than his recordings, little is known of his life. The circumstances of his death are unclear. Some sources report that he died in June 1975, but the researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc have stated that he probably died in May 1973 in Scotlandville, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
(Edited from AllMusic, Wikipedia & Gerard Herzhaft)
King Alex ( July 29, 1934 - March 15, 2008) was a Kansas City bass player and blues singer whose career spanned over forty years.
"King-Alex" Littlejohn was born during the great depression in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. Soon after Alex and his family moved to Ferriday, Louisiana where Alex grew up. His father worked for the city, but he also played guitar, fiddle and sang. In fact his whole family was musical. Uncle White played piano and guitar. Aunt Maude sang and played guitar. Alex remembered the music they made at house parties and fish fries.
When Alex was 14 he came to Kansas City with his Uncle and Cousin and lived in the 18th and Vine district, where he loved to listen to Louis Jordan, Charles Brown, T-Bone Walker, Frank Sinatra and later B.B. King. Alex attended the Kansas City Conservatory of Music for a while and also took Bass lessons from Claude "Fiddler" Williams, an original member of the Count Basie band.
Alex got his first break on stage at a club in Kansas City on 5th Street. He went on to play the East-side clubs such as O.G.'s, Club Harlem, Club Mardi Gras and the Black Orchid. As King Alex and the Kansas City Turnpikes he recorded a couple of sides in the late 1950's for Spindle, including "Hutcia Cutchia Lovin' Man" as King Alex & The Untouchables.
He had a chance to go national, but had newly married, had a good job at the Tension Envelope factory, just bought a house and a car. His family came first, so for decades King Alex had been playing around Kansas City and the region, defining the tough Kansas City Blues sound.
In the 1970's Robert Locke (drums) and Dough Hemphill (guitar) joined the band. In 1994 Charlie Booth (organ) joined the group and they had two cuts on the Kansas City Blues Society's Bustin Loose CD. In late 1995 Alex released his first CD "Grindin' Stone". 1996 saw King Alex play the Blues Estafette in Utrecht, Holland and received rave reviews.
Although Alex enjoyed his re-found fame, he was still a regular working man, putting in 40 hours a week at the envelope factory, which was perhaps a part of hiss appeal. More CD's followed "Hot As A Coffee Pot" (1997), "Sugar Bowl" (2001). In 2002 returned to Europe for a three week tour. That year he was inducted into the Elder Statesmen of Kansas City Jazz along with former employer and life-long friend Richard "Dick" Berkley. He then decided to cut a greatest hits CD, "The Cream Of King Alex", covering over forty years of his song writing, o which Alex's rich vocals are complimented by his powerful band, The Untouchables. Heading the 2003 Kansas City Blues Festival, he was honoured for his many years of dedication. In 2004 he performed at the Poconos Blues Festival.
During his career Alex had played with B.B. King, Albert Collins, Claude "Fiddler" Williams and Little Hatch, to name but a few. He continued to play and sing the blues until his passing on March 15, 2008.
Gene Wyatt (July 28, 1937 - January 16, 1979) was an American country and rockabilly singer.
Preston Eugene "Gene" Wyatt was born in Lake Village, Arkansas, to Bertie Wyatt and Arby lee Wyatt. When he was one year old his parents moved to Marthaville, Louisiana. From his earliest childhood he showed signs of his innate talent, becoming a magnificent guitarist and singer, especially of country and Cajun music. He amazed everyone by playing in church and at local dances, so that soon the town became too small for him and when he came of age he decided to try his luck in the neighbouring city of Shreveport. There he began to play in clubs and married Joereitia Stanford, with whom he had two children.
Moving from country to rockabilly. He recorded the good rockabilly "Lover boy" (1957) with James Burton on the modest Ebb label, although it went completely unnoticed. Also that year one of his first personal appearances was at the Louisiana Hayride. His next single "Pretiest Girl in the Dance" (1959) was released on the local label Lucky Seven, but wasn't until 1964 that he released "You bug me baby" on another modest Shreveport label, Aetna.
In 1966 Gene accepted the position as front man for David Houston. In addition to gaining knowledge, he also gained a lot of mileage. He toured with the Houston troupe throughout the United States, Canada, England and Germany. His highlight was a standing ovation at the London Palladium. After touring he decided to try it on his own as an artist. He recorded "I stole the flowers from your garden" for Mercury in 1967.This was a most rewarding effort for it was Gene's first record to make the National Charts. After Mercury Gene fulfilled a long time desire to record for Stan Lewis, owner of Paula Records.
Gene's first record on Paula " I Just Ain't Got As Much As He's Got Going For Me," proved to be highly successful, giving Gene two in a row to reach the National Charts. He released another five singles including "Little Liza Jane" (1968), "As long as I live" (1969) and his version of the classic "Let the good times roll" (1974), but still stardom illuded him.
During his later days Gene suffered from a deep depression. A close friend Randy Floyd said that nobody wanted musical success any more than Gene. He felt he had gotten so close and it slipped away, and how humiliating it was to have success and the fall to where he was just working the strip for whatever he could make. It seems nobody recognized how serious Gene's depression was until he tragically died of a self inflicted gunshot wound on January 16, 1979. David Houston paid tribute and sang at Gene's funeral.
At the time of Gene's death he was married to Joreita Andrea Stanford and they had two children Kimberly Rachelle Wyatt and Christopher Loren Wyatt who are both now deceased. Joreita Stanford Wyatt also passed after his death. Gene has two grandchildren Angel Wyatt and Dakota Wyatt.
Well music lovers Gene is hardly if at all mentioned in the annuls of Rock'n'roll or Country, in fact the only information I could find was mainly on Facebook & Last.fm website. Although Gene never reached "star" status he was one of hundreds of aspiring singers who need at least some recognition for their contribution to the genre.
Byron Lee OJ, CD, born Byron Aloysius St. Elmo Lee (27 June 1935 – 4 November 2008), was a Jamaican musician, record producer, and entrepreneur, best known for his work as leader of Byron Lee and the Dragonaires.
Lee was born in Christiana, Manchester Parish, Jamaica, to a mixed-race Chinese-Jamaican mother, Evelyn Chung, and a Chinese father, Oscar Lee, a language teacher originally from Kowloon, Hong Kong. The family moved to the Mountain View Gardens area of Kingston when Lee was around 8 or 9 years old. He learned to play piano at a convent school in Mandeville, but put music on hold when he was selected to the Jamaica national football team. He taught himself to play bass on a homemade instrument, and around 1950, along with his friend Carl Brady, he formed the first incarnation of the Dragonaires, named after the college football team that they played for, at that time concentrating on mento. The band turned professional in 1956 and went on to become one of Jamaica's leading ska bands, continuing since and taking in other genres such as calypso, soca, and Mas.
Byron Lee is known to have introduced the electric bass guitar to Jamaica in late 1959 or 1960. However, the reason Lee began to use the electric bass as opposed to the double bass had nothing to do with sound. Rather, it was a way for Lee to avoid carrying the large and heavy double bass to the truck to move from gig to gig. The bass guitar gained popularity throughout the country and soon became the standard. The electric bass's louder, clearer, and more in-your-face sound soon changed the sound of Jamaican music entirely, especially after Skatalites bassist Lloyd Brevett took a liking to it.
One of the first ska bands, the Dragonaires were a 14-piece outfit whose line-up was always changing (and sometimes worked under the name the Ska Kings), toured throughout the Caribbean and into North America, spreading the ska sound. Lee opened a concert booking and promotion agency in the early '60s, Lee Enterprises Limited, as well as his own label, Dragon's Breath. He and his band, The Dragonaires, are featured in the first James Bond movie, Dr. No, set in and around Kingston, Jamaica in 1962. They are prominently seen, playing "Jamaica Jump Up" on the bandstand at Pussfeller's calypso bar.
He brought American acts like the Drifters, Chuck Berry, Sam Cooke, and Fats Domino into Jamaica, booking them into the Carib and Regal Theaters, with local Jamaican acts opening for them. Lee's big year was 1964, when he and the Dragonaires played the New York World's Fair, in their own set and backing Prince Buster, Eric Morris, and Peter Tosh. They were all a sensation at the fair, and even managed to work in some major gigs at some of Manhattan's best nightclubs. It spread their names into the gossip columns and newspaper entertainment sections, and did wonders to boost Jamaica's tourism to even higher levels.
Lee also worked as a producer, producing many of the ska singles by The Maytals, and his entrepreneurial skills led to him setting up the Byron Lee's Spectacular Show tour, which involved several Jamaican acts (including The Maytals) touring the Caribbean. He also became the head of distribution in Jamaica for Atlantic Records. In 1969 Lee purchased the West Indies Records Limited (WIRL) recording studios from Edward Seaga after fire had destroyed the pressing plant on the same site, and renamed it Dynamic Sounds, soon having a new pressing facility built on the site. It soon became one of the best-equipped studios in the Caribbean, attracting both local and international recording artists, including Paul Simon and The Rolling Stones, who recorded their famous song "Angie" there. Lee's productions included Boris Gardiner's Reggae Happening, Hopeton Lewis's Grooving Out on Life, and The Slickers' "Johnny Too Bad". Dynamic also acts as one of Jamaica's leading record distributors.
Lee and the Dragonaires maintained a following right into the end of the twentieth century, their Jamaican dancehall-influenced sound delighting crowds at the annual Carnival celebration. In 1990, Lee inaugurated what became an annual event, Jamaica Carnival, held on Constant Spring Road, and attended by hundreds of thousands of people that united the "uptown" and "downtown" residents of Kingston, an event that Lee called "the happiest moment in my life". Lee had performed with the Dragonaires at carnivals around the Caribbean since the mid-1970s, and chose the location for the carnival to attract revellers from all of Jamaica's classes, stating: "The biggest problem was that most Jamaicans said it wouldn't work, that it isn't a carnival country, but I persisted 'cause I believed in it. I wanted carnival to go to the public. You always had other carnivals that were held mostly indoor, where persons had to pay to get in. I went to the people and choose Half-Way Tree where uptown and downtown meet. That is where the route will remain". In the early days of ska, Lee was credited in taking it from the ghettos and giving it appeal among Jamaica's "uptown" middle and upper classes.
Meanwhile, he continued making his own music, having evolved from ska to reggae and, by the late '70s, to the soca style. He has also been credited with taking soca in the opposite direction, popularising a genre that had previously only been enjoyed in Jamaica among the upper classes, with the island's working class.
Lee and the Dragonaires have maintained a following right into the end of the twentieth century, their Jamaican dancehall-influenced sound delighting crowds at the annual Carnival celebration. Lee missed the Jamaica Carnival in 2007 as he was receiving treatment for bladder cancer after having surgery in Florida, and no longer appeared on stage with the Dragonaires, although he was still involved in the band's management, and was involved with the festival again in 2008. A concert was held in his honour on 30 June 2007, to celebrate his 50 years in the music industry, with artists performing including fellow cancer survivors Myrna Hague and Pluto Shervington. Proceeds went to the Jamaica Cancer Society. Lee was awarded the Order of Distinction in 1982, upgraded to Commander level on 15 October 2007, in recognition of his "contribution in the fields of Music and Entertainment both locally and internationally".
In October 2008, after receiving treatment for several weeks in Florida, Lee returned to spend his final days in Jamaica. In a ceremony at the University Hospital of the West Indies on 26 October 2008, he was awarded the Order of Jamaica (OJ). Lee died from bladder cancer after a sustained period in Kingston on 4 November 2008, aged 73. In a statement on the day of Lee's death, the Prime Minister of Jamaica, Bruce Golding, said: "Jamaica, and indeed the world, has lost another great music pioneer with the passing this morning of Byron Lee, one of the greatest band leaders ever to grace the entertainment stages of the world".
.jpg)
.jpg)
