Biography
Connors was born in New Haven, Connecticut, United States, and studied art at Southern Connecticut State University and the University of Cincinnati in the early 1970s, before deciding to pursue music rather than painting.[2]
Best known as a composer and improviser on acoustic and electric guitar, Connors has released over 50 albums, on commercial record labels such as Family Vineyard, Table of the Elements, Recital and Father Yod as well as on his own Black Label, St. Joan and Daggett self-publishing imprints.[3] They include spare solo and duo blues, ensemble experimental jazz, noise, drones, and avant garde rock.
An early champion of his music was Dr. William Ferris, noted blues historian who served as head of the National Endowment for the Arts under the Clinton Administration. Connors made contact with him in the late 1970s, while Dr. Ferris was teaching at Yale University. Although Ferris did not know it at the time, Connors was the janitor who cleaned his office. Many years later, Ferris wrote the liner notes for a sweeping compilation CD set of Connors's seven-inch recordings, called "Night Through."[4]
From 1978 to 1984, Connors recorded a series of mostly solo blues abstractions, releasing them in limited amounts on his Daggett label,[2] later reissued in a joint effort by Byron Coley, Thurston Moore on the Ecstatic Peace label in 1999, mastered by Jim O’Rourke, in part to celebrate Connors's 50th birthday.[5] Cadence Magazine noted at the time that he was “similar to others in the Advanced Guard of improvising guitarists in that he is trying to extend the boundaries of sound and pitch of acoustic guitar, but he is unique in the utilization of Blues in his work, one could almost say this is Avant Garde Blues.”[6] From 1981 to 1984, Connors released six limited edition albums with folksinger Kath Bloom, including traditional songs and Bloom originals.[7]
In the mid-1980s, Connors took a partial break from music and honed his compositional skills by focusing on the art of haiku.[8] He received the 1987 Lafcadio Hearn Award, and he and life partner Suzanne Langille also co-wrote an article on blues and haiku, "The Dancing Ear," published in the Haiku Society of America's journal.[9] (A book of Connors's work from this period, Autumn Sun,[10] was re-released by Thurston Moore and Byron Coley a couple decades later.) He wrote under the name Loren Mattei, and a music recording from this period, Ribbon o' Blues, was also released under that name.
Soon after returning to music, Connors began working with layered tracks. The first of this period was the In Pittsburgh album, released in 1989,[2] later reissued by the Dexter's Cigar label in 1996.[11][12] He moved to New York City in 1990,[2] where he continued using the multi-track approach through the 1990s.[13] Langille's vocals were featured on several recordings,[14] and she also helped edit his suites.[15] Many of these releases were on the RoadCone label, managed by Mike Hinds.[2] During this period Connors introduced an abstracted undercurrent of Irish themes and melodic influences, while eschewing formal structure, with the Hell’s Kitchen Park CD being a hallmark of this added influence.[16]
Such 1990s recordings were interspersed with recordings of live performances of guitar duets. The first of those recordings was with Japanese guitarist Keiji Haino, introduced to Connors by WFMU DJ David Newgarten, who then produced the recording, released in 1995. This was followed by the first of several recordings with guitarist Alan Licht in 1996, and with Thurston Moore and others.[17][2]
In the mid-to-late 1990s he led the blues-rock group Haunted House with Langille, Andrew Burnes (of the band San Agustin), and percussionist Neel Murgai.[11] Connors and Langille also joined with San Agustin's David Daniell and Burnes for a recording on the Secretly Canadian label.
In the late 1990s, Connors and John Fahey met at a Chicago event,[18] introduced by guitarist Jim O'Rourke. Fahey, who died in 2001, included on his last CD, released posthumously in 2003, a piece called, "Red Cross, Disciple of Christ Today (for Guitar Roberts)," referring to Connors's nickname. In the mid-2000s, Connors met and performed with Jandek, a long-time improviser whose unique independence and originality had often been compared to Connors's. He worked very closely with poet Steve Dalachinsky (who died in 2019)[19] and also with multi-instrumentalist Daniel Carter.
From 1999 through the present, Connors has focused on extended solo improvisational recordings, including the Departing of a Dream series, his tribute to Miles Davis. His main record label for these recordings has been Family Vineyard, managed by Eric Weddle.[20]
In 2003, he composed and recorded a score for the film Why Can’t I Stop This Uncontrollable Dancing?.[21] In 2009, Connors's piece, “Airs No. 3,” appeared in the soundtrack for the French-language film, Le Premier Cercle (“The Ultimate Heist), by director Laurent Tuel, featuring Jean Reno.[22][23]
In 2012, his composition, "The Murder of Joan of Arc," was used as one of two alternative soundtracks for a reissue by Criterion Collection and Eureka Entertainment of Carl Dreyer's silent film, The Passion of Joan of Arc.[24]
In the mid-to-late 2010s, Connors took up painting again, while continuing his music composing and performing. An art show of a series of acrylic paintings on Belgium linen canvas was hosted at the Artists Space in Manhattan in the fall of 2018.[25]
Connors was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1992.[26] He continues to perform and record. Some of Connors' works are archived at the Blues Archive of the University of Mississippi. The University of South Carolina has a comprehensive archive of Connors' recordings and materials.
