We Spell Our Last Name R-O-C-H-E

So this is how I got into the Roches: For a few summers back home in Arizona, where I returned between my first two college years in L.A., I began to write freelance music reviews for The Arizona Republic, emboldened to do so, I think, because I'd begun writing music and film criticism for USC's Daily Trojan. At the encouragement of the Republic's main pop music critic and editor, a taciturn Brit named Andrew Means, I scanned the music listings in the free weekly The New Times for upcoming acts to preview. That's how I ended up interviewing everyone from Etta James to Mojo Nixon to Carl Finch of Brave Combo.

And then there were the Roches, the folkish trio of sisters from NYC, whose record Keep On Doing I sought out as research. I remember their concert at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts quite fondly, as well as an odd encounter with them backstage after the show, where I and a good friend hung out and struck up a conversation without quite introducing ourselves. I'm pretty sure I spoke to Terre then, as I had on the phone. I soon owned all their records, though it wasn't until years later that I tracked down Maggie and Terre's great pre-trio record, Seductive Reasoning.

While I've lost much of my pre-internet writing, I have been able to find most of my Arizona Republic clips in some form or other online (the benefits of writing for a large daily). Without further ado: my 19-year-old take on the Roches.

Harmonizing sisters crack stereotype

By ROB KENDT
Special for The Republic, June 30, 1987

The Roches have been advertised for their Scottsdale performance as "the Andrews Sisters singing Woody Allen dialogue to Cole Porter tunes."

"That's the first time I've heard that," Terre Roche said last week from a pay phone at the Salt Lake City Marriott. "It sounds like they haven't really heard us." The problem is, few people have heard the Roches. They're the Saul Bellow of popular music: draped with awards and critical praise for their very personal, idiosyncratic material and overlooked by the public for much the same reason.

Terre Roche is unfazed by it all. The middle sister recalls a time nearly 10 years ago in New York when "we started singing as a trio in the street, singing Christmas carols. We weren't even thinking about recording ... (or) doing it for a living. We all had other jobs." The other jobs included waitressing, "so we could eat."
Music was the main interest of Maggie, Terre and Suzzy (rhymes with "fuzzy") Roche, however. "We wanted to keep the creative part alive. Sometimes when you get involved with corporations, it tends to die." Street-singing led to club gigs, which led to Warner Bros., where the Roches were signed in 1978 as a new folk act. And the rest is history.
Now Warner Bros, is history, too. After four widely acclaimed, generally unheard albums with that label, the Roches released the wistful, barbed four-song EP No Trespassing, on a small label, SOS, around Christmas time last year. Terre says the band is looking for a label for "an album's worth of material we have ready to record."

But is it going to sound like Cole Porter? The sisters have sung Porter's “Bad For Me,” but their sound is miles from Broadway. Their guitar-backed singing, simple melodies and intricate harmonies give them the easy ring of folk. "A lot of what we do is rooted in folk," Terre admits. "But I think a lot of it is also from singing in choirs and listening to AM radio in the '60s."

And Woody Allen? Their songs are autobiographical, Terre says, "probably as much as someone like Woody Allen is autobiographical." Terre has written: "They say the world's over. Goodbye, see you next time," and "It might be better, but do you want it to be better?" "After awhile, you say, 'Oh, I know what the person is talking about.' "
The Andrews Sisters comparison may be the most apt. These are women who grew up singing together without formal training and who can muster radiant, achingly perfect harmonies. They can croon Handel's “Hallelujah Chorus” with as much authority and chutzpah as they do their own songs. Philip Glass fans (wherever they are) will recognize them as the angel choir that closes his Songs From Liquid Days with a mesmeric repetition of "honesty, kindness, compassion."

And their rapport onstage is electric. This is a group whose emphasis is, above all, on live performance. "It's fun, it's easy, it's nice," Terre said. "It's really a kick. It's almost like going to an awards ceremony."