V&B Hall Of Fame Part 5
In 1979, New Jersey-bred sisters Maggie, Terre and Suzzy Roche released their first album as a trio. The album, simply titled The Roches, was a sparse collection of quirky New York bohemian folk tracks buoyed by the sisters’ amazingly nimble and alternating sweet and dissonant harmonies (Terre on top, Suzzy in the middle, Maggie on the bottom) and high school drama girl charm (kind of cute, but not quite; kind of hip, but not quite; kind of annoying; but not totally). Of course, it had been roughly a decade leading up to this terrific album. The elder sisters, Maggie and Terre, had actually been performing together since the late 60s, busking throughout New Jersey and New York. The duo were eventually befriended by Paul Simon who recruited the pair to perform backup vocal duties on his 1973 album There Goes Rhymin’ Simon. Simon then went on to produce the pair on their 1975 debut, Seductive Reasoning.
At this point, youngest sister Suzzy joined the elder pair. The trio became a formidable presence within the Greenwich folk scene, performing their vocal gymnastics and cheeky a cappella arrangements for the city’s boho elite (one such “cheeky” song, the biographical “We,” kicks off the trio’s debut). In this time, the Roches established a vaunted reputation among local critics despite having yet to release a proper album as a trio. When it came time to finally put their product to tape, The Roches ingeniously hired prog maverick, guitar superhero and go-to collaborator Robert Fripp, of King Crimson fame. Fripp’s production on the album is unfussy and tasteful especially for a stripped down group with little in the way of instrumental flourishes. Each vocal inflection and shift in harmony is clear and pristine. It is only for the group’s true masterpiece, Maggie’s “Hammond Song,” that Fripp truly makes his presence known, however – but it isn’t so much his production, but his guitar virtuosity. “Hammond” is a beautiful ballad with show-stopping harmonies, but it’s when Fripp’s electric comes in as a fourth voice mid-song that the song jumps from “really great” to potential “best song of the decade” status. It’s a dynamite moment and one of the reasons The Roches, an album that received critical adulation but little commercial success, remains highly respected to this day.
It would make sense for me to want to write on that first album extensively. After all, if you know the Roches at all, it would likely be the album you’re most comfortable with. But the truth is, for as good and well respected as that album is (The Roches was voted one of the top 100 alternative albums of all time in Spin Magazine’s Guide To Alternative Music – circa 1995), I actually enjoy the group’s third album, 1982’s Keep On Doing, just a smidgen more.
After self-producing the good-but-not-spectacular Nurds in 1980, the Roches opted to return back to the loving arms of Robert Fripp for album three. Keep On Doing follows a curiously similar trajectory as the self-titled album. Echoing The Roches’ part aggravating/part hilarious statement of intent in “We,” Keep On Doing opens with the girls strutting their vocal dexterity with an a cappella version of “The Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s Messiah, a performance the group had implemented in the live setting since their beginning. “The Hallelujah Chorus” goes out of its way to showcase the group’s key area of strength, and as silly an idea as three ladies doing a highly idiosyncratic version of a universally renowned song is, it is an admittedly impressive feat and a far more effective album introduction than the potentially grating “We.”
“The Hallelujah Chorus”
Similar to the debut, Keep On Doing moves from its vocal introduction to the Fripp-accompanied super ballad with the beautiful “Losing True.” Like “Hammond Song,” a track that “Losing True” undeniably emulates, the second Keep On Doing track underscores the sisters’ gentle, shifting harmony with acoustic strumming and minute triplet arpeggios. Fripp’s impossibly smooth guitar makes its entrance roughly halfway through the song, although it doesn’t establish itself as another voice the way it does on “Hammond Song.” Instead, Fripp does some more traditional soloing. It’s not quite a captivating as “Hammond Song,” but “Losing True” is no mere facsimile either. The song is generally more traditional in both its accompaniment and vocal harmony, and therefore less likely to be a jolt to the listener.
“Losing True”
While Keep On Doing’s best (“Losing True”) isn’t as good as The Roches’ best (“Hammond Song”), it’s the strength of Keep On Doing’s supporting cast that makes it the (slightly) superior album. At its best, the girls keep things relaxed on the back eight of the album, with tracks like “Steady With The Maestro” and “On The Road To Fairfax County” keeping the melodies simple and the arrangements predictable, but no less emotional and affecting. At its worst, the songs are knee deep in quirk and needles-on-chalkboard vocal showboating (“The Largest Elizabeth In The World” and “Want Not Want Not” one of the rare tracks where Fripp goes over the top with his production by dicking around with the stereo settings). But, even if the vocal gymnastics are the whole point on certain tracks, they’re still plenty impressive.
Perhaps the best of Keep On Doing’s rest are the remaining tracks that bare more noticeable Frippian trademarks. “The Scorpian’s Lament,” a mellow stroll of a track, puts Maggie Roche – always the Roche sister with the greatest sense of subtlety - out front with the girls’ regular vocal exclamations punctuating things along with some delicate acoustic noodling and a gorgeous swell of sound in the chorus. It’s actually one of the lovelier vocal tracks on the album, but Fripp’s slight build gives the song a real shape.
Even better is “Sex Is For Children,” which almost totally ignores the vocal performances save for some subdued nursery rhyme nonsense planted firmly in the background in favor of Fripp’s bold guitar work. The track doesn’t resemble the Roches so much as Fripp’s collaborations with Brian Eno, albeit with a folksy lilt. Think of this as Here Come The Warm Jets for the kiddie album set.
“Sex Is For Children”
The Roches were always a hit and miss kind of band, but even in more recent years, where the chance of being a part of any kind of cultural zeitgeist is absolutely nil, they remain a band that can still occasionally produce a song or two of unparalleled vocal beauty (2004’s Why The Long Face? is especially strong). Keep On Doing catches the band in that moment after their fleeting moment in an already dim spotlight, but it shows that while they may not be able to flourish commercially, they still had enough creative juices to make a career out of their brand of spunky, vocal prog. The album has its peaks and valleys, but it’s a mathematical improvement on the group’s more famous debut. It’s also another impressive notch on the belt of Robert Fripp, one of the 20th century’s finest musical talents.