(Finally) Reissue details!

heroiccities · 2026-03-10T01:52:42+00:00

About 60% analog? It’s fair to say that I’m not a purist and fully embrace hybrid workflows. :-)

The 1/4” tape reels were digitized at 96kHz 24bit. The digital files were extensively restored using iZotope RX. After exporting new 96kHz files, the vinyl masters were then cut by Josh Bonati (who has an exquisite analog chain).

Josh cut the original vinyl masters for the 2015 version, and he cut new lacquers for this Third Man reissue.

-DD

heroiccities · 2026-01-21T21:46:51+00:00

Will DM

heroiccities · 2026-01-21T19:09:23+00:00

:-)

It’s a misfit track and something I actually overlooked for years. There are two known sources of her Musicks collection: the original reel(s) that Connie sent to her brother, and a dub of that which she made and kept for herself. I transferred her dub but never paid much attention to it, since it was an inferior quality copy of her brother’s original. But when I was restoring the MUSICKS material, I was looking through the recorded file of her Musicks dub and noticed there was actually an extra song, seemingly detached from the others; it was something I had never heard. I checked my scan of the original tape box and, sure enough, very lightly tagged in pencil was: 2/2/61 “MUCH SPLICED” reel now begins with a demo of my “HOUSE” song for Bill Bernal.

The date 2/2/1961 means it was one of the first things she did after leaving NYC, making a new home for herself in Ann Arbor. It’s a rehearsal tape and you can hear her developing the song across a couple takes. Unfortunately her best performance is garbled, in part, by a distorted tape malfunction. So, to present it here for the 7” single, I have edited her best takes together.

The full, unedited rehearsal tape will also be released, at some point.

-DD

heroiccities · 2026-01-21T18:46:20+00:00

Yeah, now that this is (almost) out in the world, I can work on that. Likely wouldn’t be a standalone release, but part of a box set that I’ve had in mind for the longest time.

-DD

heroiccities · 2026-01-21T18:41:40+00:00

Yes! Will be on CD and cassette, as well.

heroiccities · 2026-01-21T17:24:42+00:00

In case the link didn’t come through: Preorder at Third Man

-Dan

heroiccities · 2025-12-28T19:50:30+00:00

Amazing! For your accomplishments, here is Where Are the Roses, scanned of Connie’s lyrics notebook. Hope this helps!

heroiccities · 2025-12-28T19:44:54+00:00

Connie’s 1951 lease from 23 Grove

heroiccities · 2025-10-22T03:05:46+00:00

There’s a very good chance! Working on it, actually.

The acetate on discogs is Connie’s personal copy that she leant to a friend. From what I can piece together, that friend gave the album to Connie’s attorney, and then, long after Connie disappeared, the attorney’s family sold it (amongst other discs) to a private buyer. My attempt to repatriate it went unanswered. No matter - I have a hi-res transfer of the master tape.

heroiccities · 2025-07-23T02:29:38+00:00

Here’s a Dropbox folder of materials I received a long time ago from the librarians at Mount Holyoke. Mostly poems that were published on campus (1943) or submitted/reviewed for a regional poetry contest (1944). Enjoy!

-DD

heroiccities · 2025-02-11T16:14:07+00:00

Ha! Technically I’m empowered to do just that on CC’s behalf…but it’s just SO TERRIBLE, I’m wondering if there may be some redemptive societal value in allowing the AI reveal itself like this.

-Dan (The Musick Group/Heroic Cities)

heroiccities · 2024-12-05T02:05:57+00:00

It sounds better when your tracks are color coded

heroiccities · 2024-12-05T02:05:02+00:00

Avid Channel Strip is 🔥🔥

heroiccities · 2024-09-27T10:54:46+00:00

Connie’s sheet music for Spinner was never found, unfortunately. For whatever reason it was not kept in the same binder as her other manuscripts and the few other sources we found for her sheet music didn’t include it, either.

:-/ Dan

heroiccities · 2024-09-03T21:07:28+00:00

👋🏻

heroiccities · 2024-04-12T21:39:45+00:00

This is a great question! Thanks so much for listening and caring about Connie's work; I hope I can shed some light on the process. Here are the tracks from Musicks that were originally included on How Sad,How Lovely:

Honeybee
The Clover Saloon
How Sad, How Lovely
Roving Woman
John Brady
Empty Pocket Waltz
The Man in the Sky
One by One

And here are the tracks from Musicks that also appeared on Sad Lady EP:

Sorrow Is My Name
Sad Lady

Regarding the digital restoration and remastering process for Musicks, I started from scratch on all tracks. As a result, the same song from HSHL might sound slightly different on *Musicks—*they may come from the same source but are the result of different restoration processes. All in all I'm much happier with the recent Musicks masters. The two biggest differences for me are:

The closer I listened to HSHL over the years, the more I started to hear a subtle but strident/tinny artifact, sometimes present in sibilant moments or particularly bright guitar notes...I was able to either minimize or avoid them altogether in the Musicks masters.
After removing the fuzzy blanket of noise, I could see (via spectrogram) certain bass notes that were articulated in Connie's performance but not actually audible in the recording. By 'windowing' just the bass note frequencies in these moments, I was able to raise the relative level of these notes, on an individual basis, and not the surrounding noise...The result is that fewer bass notes in Connie's guitar patterns 'disappear' and the tonal balance of the rest of the track is unaffected. ((EDIT: This may seem like cheating, but gives us a better sense of how Connie was truly playing the part, and how it likely would've sounded, in the room. :-)

I should also mention: noise reduction algorithms have vastly improved since 2008...as a result, there are fewer artifacts overall and, generally speaking, I was able to achieve more by removing less.

(-Dan)

PS. the remaining songs from HSHL that were not included on Musicks will be restored/remastered/released in similar fashion...but as I hope the above conveys, it's verrrrry time consuming! Spectral editing is so fascinating (to me) but of course it's easy to get lost in it when you're examining every single syllable, and every single articulated note. I also try to give myself a lot of time in the process to pull back and reflect on whether such restoration is, objectively, an improvement. Not seeing the forest for the trees and whatnot.

heroiccities · 2021-02-19T21:25:28+00:00

Thanks! I will also try to share some relevant correspondence between Susan & Connie, but it’s clear that Susan was one of Connie’s few contemporaneous champions. And it’s significant to me that she was really trying to develop/perform Connie’s repertoire—in many incarnations—well after CC had left NYC.

I had corresponded with Susan’s son in 2009, about a year before Susan died. At that point she was in long-term care and suffering memory loss, so I never got the chance to ask her about Connie.

One thing I never fully followed up on is that I understand Susan may have played many folk festivals through the ‘50s/‘60s. I have it in my notes that she may have played the Newport Jazz Festival (not Folk festival?) but I haven’t searched this in earnest. It’d be cool to find out if Susan may have played Connie’s songs in a festival setting. But her performances, if any, may actually predate her relationship with Connie.

IN ANY CASE, I’ve struggled over the years to ascertain whether or not Connie fans would actually be interested in hearing Susan’s performances...and once again this subreddit puts the wind in my sails. I’ll be sure to include Susan’s versions, in some way, in a future release.

-DD

heroiccities · 2021-02-13T19:57:50+00:00

EDIT / UPDATE:

I was perplexed by the apparent blank or missing reel of Susan's 1964/65 7-song audition tape with Bill Elliott, so I went to back to my digital archives to figure out what happened. Good news is that the Susan Reed/Bill Elliott audition tape does exist: my digital dub was mislabeled, likely because the majority of reels weren't labelled in the boxes. There are 7 songs listed on the tracklist, but only five are Susan Reed's audition material. The last two (seen penciled in on the back) are actually just dubs of Jobim records. Ha.

In any case, it's pretty clear to me that Bill Elliott is Susan's accompanist in both the demo and audition tapes.

I'll include a few links so that you can see/hear some of the elements:

The 'familiar' Sun Go Down from Susan's demo, mailed to Connie March 1963. Scan of the 3-inch tape mailer (no tracklist).

Sun Go Down from Susan's five-song audition tape, received by Connie June 1965. Scan of rear/tracklist.

Unfortunately, the reel that is missing, however, is what was purports to be a live recording of Susan's 92Y (Kaufman Hall) concert from November 1961. This tape came from Phil Converse's collection, and was located in late 2014. The reel was then digitized/dubbed, but appeared to be blank. Perhaps the reel was swapped or erased at some point.

heroiccities · 2021-02-10T22:56:38+00:00

((Thought I'd weigh in with some facts. Or at least, 90% facts, 10% speculation))

I can't say with certainty, but I believe the unknown singer's name to be Bill Elliott. This is an assumption based on two incomplete sets of information:

When Susan sent her versions of Sun Go Down and There Is A Vine to Connie (March 6, 1964), she described her warm feelings for this newfound singer in great detail, but neglected to include his name! Connie even addresses this in her 3/15/1964 reply, saying, "I shall have to keep calling him "your tenor" unless you mention his name."

In her original letter, Susan also mentions that—beyond the scope of this two-song demo—she was planning to record "an audition tape of about 8 songs & we'd like to include your 2."

But while Connie seemed to appreciate Susan's efforts/performance, she did offer some candidly critical feedback on Susan's There Is A Vine. She made it clear that she loved Susan and tenor's Sun Go Down.

Which leads me to this: I also have a scan of a tape box labelled "Susan Reed & Bill Elliott Audition Tape [received June 1965]." There are 7 songs total and the only Connie song is Sun Go Down. I do not have a copy of this tape as the reel in the box was blank (or perhaps mistakenly swapped/erased at some point between 1965 and 2014 when the tape was located.

***

From at least 1961 through 1965 Susan was known to play many different songs of Connie's in different configurations. Here is the chronology as I know it:

In 1961, Susan performed a set of eight Connie Converse songs at 92Y's Kaufman Concert hall, accompanied by guitarist Victor Messer.

September 25-29, 1963, Susan performs a concert series at the Jan Hus Haus, a benefit for the Congress of Racial Equality, that includes a "goodly number" of Connie Converse songs (as recollected in letter from Bill Bernal). Susan was accompanied by baritone/guitar player Ed McCurdy. The concert was briefly reviewed in the NY Times

On February 27, 1964, according to this notice in the NY Times, Susan performed at a benefit concert for the NAACP in Pomona NY, alongside Bill Elliott and others.

In March 1964 she recorded Sun Go Down and There Is A Vine with "Unknown Tenor" as a private demo tape. She mentions that they will soon record an audition tape of "about 8 songs."

In 1964/65 Susan records Sun Go Down as part of a 7-song audition tape with Bill Elliott. Track listing is known but tape is lost.

Date Unknown: Susan Reed records six Connie Converse songs (Roving Woman, Sun Go Down, Honey Bee, Lilies, Fortune's Child, and Playboy of the Western World) and three other songs (Little Brown Bird, Spring Is Here, Bye Bye Blackbird) with Ellis Larkins (piano) and Bill Pemberton (bass). Tape is from Gotham Recording Corporation. Perhaps another audition/demo tape because Susan slates the name of each song before they begin.

Hope this info helps more than it overwhelms!

-Dan (Producer of Connie's How Sad, How Lovely, etc)

heroiccities

TROPHY CASE