Representative Songs: "[Untitled Track]", "The Art of the Blues", "Blue Ghost Blues
Biography
The eclectic music of improvisational guitarist Loren MazzaCane Connors is difficult to describe neatly and concisely, but avant-garde is the best generalization. Experimental, jazz and blues also fit, and even hints of Irish music are evident. Connors -- who names abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko as his single biggest artistic influence -- is incredibly prolific; he released approximately 30 albums between 1978 and 1999 -- many in extremely limited quantities -- on countless labels under his own name and a handful of pseudonyms (including Guitar Roberts.) His wife, Suzanne Langille, occasionally sings on his recordings. Connors' obscure albums met with indifference until the early 1990s when critics began to take notice and supporters such as Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo, Gastr Del Sol's Jim O'Rourke and Alan Licht (who has recorded with Connors, Run On, Love Child and Blue Humans) sang his praises. Connors, who often extensively edits his recordings to create albums, was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1992. As a child, Connors studied violin (which he credits with shaping his vibrato technique on the guitar) and trombone. He also learned rock & roll bass guitar. Connors was heavily influenced by his mother's singing as well. She often performed Johann Sebastian Bach pieces at funerals. This exposure to classical music led Connors to investigate the music of Giacomo Puccini and Frederic Chopin. Blues, particularly the works of Robert Pete Williams and Muddy Waters, also appealed to him. Connors studied art at Southern Connecticut University and the University of Cincinnati in the early 1970s, but he decided his music was more original than his painting. By 1976, he'd moved back to Connecticut. Two years later, Connors began issuing albums on his own Daggett label. Between 1978 and 1980, he released eight albums of solo acoustic guitar improvisations. Just 75 to 100 copies of each were pressed and sent out to radio stations, and Connors himself doesn't even have them all! (These albums were scheduled for re-release in 1998 as a four-CD set thanks to writer and Father Yod Records founder Byron Coley, a longtime Connors fan.) Between 1984 and 1989, Connors was largely inactive musically. He married Langille and they started a family. Connors dabbled in writing during this period and he won a haiku award in Japan. He moved to New York City in 1990 and a year later he began releasing albums on labels other than his own. After Connors learned he had Parkinson's disease, it changed the direction of his music. His early work often consisted of short acoustic guitar pieces, but once the disease was discovered he experimented with longer electric guitar works complete with feedback and distortion. Much of Connors' late-'90s output was released on Road Cone Records, a small label based in Portland, OR. Airs was scheduled for release by Road Cone on Oct. 22, 1999 -- Connors' 50th birthday. The Daggett Years followed in mid-2000. Little Match Girl was issued the following year. ~ Bret Adams, All Music Guide
An early champion of Connors's 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."
Best known as a composer and improviser on acoustic and electric guitar, Connors has released over 50 albums, on commercial record labels such as Table of the Elements and Father Yod as well as on his own Black Label, St. Joan and Daggett self publishing imprints. They include spare solo and duo blues, ensemble experimental jazz, noise, drones, and folk music. From 1981-1984, Connors released six limited edition albums with singer-guitarist Kath Bloom. In the mid-1980s, Connors took a partial break from music and honed his compositional skills by focusing on the art of haiku. 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. (A book of Connors's work from this period, "Autumn Sun," was re-release 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 (reissued by Dexter Cigar label in 1996). This approach to recording continued through the 1990s. Langille's vocals were featured on several recordings, and she also helped edit the music. Many of these releases were on the RoadCone label, managed by Mike Hinds. Such recordings were interspersed with 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.
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. 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, introduced by 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. Since the 1990s, Connors's main label has been Family Vineyard, managed by Eric Weddle.
Connors was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1992. He continues to perform and record. Some of Connors's works are archived at the Blues Archive of the University of Mississippi. The University of South Carolina also has a collection of his music.
recorded highlights
Two Nice Catholic Boys (Family Vineyard 2009), with Jim O'Rourke
Sails (Table of the Elements 2006), with John Fahey
Night Through: Singles and collected works 1976-2004 (Family Vineyard 2006)(incl. Robert Crotty, Suzanne Langille, Haunted House)
Departing of a Dream Volumes 1,2 and 3(Family Vineyard, early 2000s)
Suzanne Langille, Loren MazzaCane Connors, Andrew Burnes and David Daniell (Secretly Canadian 1999)
