The Roches

The Roches changed the face of the folk scene in the late '70s/early '80s by reinventing the notion of what a harmony trio could be. Sisters Maggie and Terre Roche started working as a duo in the mid '70s, releasing an album together on Capitol in 1975 that didn't earn much attention, but when they added their sister Suzzy to the lineup and became The Roches they started shaking things up in the folk world. The New York-based group made Greenwich Village's Folk City their HQ, partly because they were working the bar there before they started performing there. Their first, self-titled album came out in 1979; it was produced by Robert Fripp of King Crimson fame, and it put a spotlight on the sisters' idiosyncratic harmony blend and ear-catching, unconventional songwriting, creating a sound somehow both modernistic and timeless. Though The Roches never made much real commercial headway, they received ecstatic reviews from the start and quickly developed a loyal cult following. For their third album, 1982's Keep On Doing, not only did Robert Fripp return as producer, he brought some of his King Crimson buddies along to play with him on the record. The Roches continued recording through the mid '90s, after which they began pursuing their own paths, though Suzzy and Maggie made a couple of albums together in the 2000s. Eventually Suzzy would also release duo albums with Lucy Roche Wainwright, her daughter with singer/songwriter Loudon Wainwright III. The Roches began performing together again in 2005 and released one more album, Moonswept, in 2007. Sadly, the possibility of any further trio activity was precluded when Maggie died of cancer on January 21, 2017.