Roche sisters' CD puts smile on face

Suzzy and Maggie Roche

Why the Long Face

Red House Records

With the ethereal harmonies only siblings seem to be capable of producing, Suzzy and Maggie Roche have issued a CD that commands attentive listening.

"Why the Long Face" is the second disc on Red House for these sisters singing as a duo. Originally from New Jersey, they trace their musical lineage back to a trio with sister Terre that was the toast of New York in the late 1970s.

Influenced by King Crimson's Robert Fripp and Paul Simon -- for whom the Roches sang backup on "There Goes Rhymin' Simon" -- the three sisters have issued about a dozen albums together over the years.

In "Why the Long Face," Suzzy and Maggie Roche combine their unearthly voices into compelling arrangements. The disc closes with a cover of "A Day in the Life of a Tree," co-written by the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson and Jack Rieley, which cleverly incorporates the sounds of birds corresponding to the lines of the song, "For years my limbs stretched to the sky, a nest for birds to sit and sing."

Suzzy Roche also incorporated words from other sources -- "Training Wheels" comes from a poem written by high school student Jon Turner, who has Asperger's syndrome. Mary Gordon penned a prayer, "For Those Whose Work Is Invisible," that offers tongue-in-cheek appreciation "for scholars whose research leads to no obvious discovery; for dentists who polish each gold surface of the fillings of upper molars."

Black American poet Jessie Fauset (1882-1961), part of the Harlem Renaissance and literary editor of Crisis, provided the elegant poem Maggie Roche put to music in "La Vie C'est La Vie": "On summer afternoons I sit quiescent by you in the park, and idly watch the sunbeams gild and tint the ash trees' bark."

Story Continues →