SPEAKERS CORNER LP TEST PRESSING: Maggie & Terre Roche - Seductive Reasoning NU
$
65
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Description
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Background -
- This is a Speakers Corner LP TEST PRESSING!
- It comes in a plain jacket with no artwork.
- It has NEVER BEEN PLAYED, in mint condition.
- Inside the jacket there is an insert with information about the LP.
- The record labels are WHITE with "ONLY FOR PROMOTION" written on them.
- The dead wax around the record labels has the correct stamper information for this issue.
- Please note that the picture we have included with this listing is of a generic white jacket test pressing title. The actual item for sale is in a BLACK jacket.
- We have also included pictures of what the LP artwork looks like, for reference only.
In the late 1960s, eldest sister Margaret and middle sister Terre (pronounced "Terry") quit school to tour as a duo. Maggie wrote most of the songs, with Terre contributing to a few. The sisters got a break when Paul Simon brought them in as backup singers on his 1973 #2 album There Goes Rhymin' Simon. They got his assistance (along with an appearance by The Oak Ridge Boys) on their only album as a duo, Seductive Reasoning (1975). Shortly after that, youngest sister Suzzy (rhymes with "fuzzy") joined the group to form The Roches trio.
Around this time, they parlayed bartending jobs at famous Greenwich Village folk venue Gerde's Folk City into stage appearances, an experience they commemorated in their song, "Face Down at Folk City" (from Another World, 1985). It was here that they met many of their future singing and songwriting collaborators. Terre was now writing songs as well, and by the time of their first album as a trio, The Roches (1979), Suzzy had also begun writing. Robert Fripp produced the album. Maggie's "The Married Men" from this album was eventually to become the biggest hit of the songwriting trio — not for them, but for Phoebe Snow. After Snow and Linda Ronstadt performed the song in a duet on Saturday Night Live, the Roches were invited themselves to perform on the show a few months later in 1979 at the behest of Paul Simon. They did two songs, both unreleased at the time, "Bobby's Song" and "The Hallelujah Chorus".
Maggie has an "unusual" contralto voice--"almost a baritone." Terre provides a soprano that brackets the upper range of the sisters, while Suzzy fills in the middle range. While touring, the sisters accompany themselves with guitars and keyboards, frequently without additional musicians.
Thanks to their undeniable musical talent, which allowed them to be taken seriously in the folk scene, the industrious Roche sisters’ career began when they were young. The duo began by singing Christmas carols, doo-wop song syllable puzzles, and tricky barbershop harmonies. They finally caught the attention of Paul Simon, who brought the gifted girls in as backup singers on his LP "There Goes Rhymin’ Simon", and was primarily responsible for the birth of their first recording. The lavishly produced album achieved high critical acclaim. Although it was a worthy professional debut, the public was hesitant to buy the album. The specialist magazine Rolling Stone commented drily and somewhat at a loss that the Roches weren’t everyone’s cup of tea.
Maggie and Terre Roche are a well-rehearsed vocal team however: with a range from hazy, finely balanced voices singing as one, right up to pearly, radiant brilliance, the Roche sisters enthusiastically penned a songbook which is almost without exception their very own creation. Mechanical bluegrass music ("Wigglin’ Man"), a steam-train character ("If You Emptied ...") and a somewhat crude and unrefined country aura make the subtle lyrics easily accessible to all, but the LP also offers the listener wonderfully ill-humored verse ("The Mountain People") and story-like prose ("West Virginia"). This is a truly exceptional album, and well worth being discovered!
When young Maggie Roche introduced herself to Paul Simon, it is easy to see what attracted him to her songs and the act she had with her sister, Terre. Roche has an intelligent, individual songwriting style, and her songs serve as the vehicle for two-part harmonies with Terre, the soprano, and herself on alto, a sort of distaff version of Simon & Garfunkel. Simon was sufficiently interested to use the two on There Goes Rhymin' Simon. Musically, Seductive Reasoning is a counterpart to that record, boasting many of the same names among its credits. Like Rhymin' Simon, it was recorded largely at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section giving the tracks their distinctive hybrid sound of country, rock, folk, gospel, and blues. And just as Simon turned to former Yardbird Paul Samwell-Smith for help on the quieter "American Tune," three ballads -- "West Virginia," "Malachy's," and "Jill of All Trades" -- were handled by him. But the superior musicianship and production are not what make Seductive Reasoning an outstanding album. Rather, it is most notable as the auspicious debut of a remarkable songwriter. Roche has the perspective of a young woman thoughtfully, if confusedly, making her way through the romantic, sexual, and career thickets of early adulthood. Her gift for wordplay expresses her uncertainties well. "There ought to be something to fall back on," she writes in "Down the Dream," "like a knife or a career." And her sense of romantic exploration is equally wary of the pitfalls, as she reveals in "Underneath the Moon": "A woman is like a puzzle/Shackin' up with the clues/While every piece she get/Is another piece she lose." The sisters trade off vocals and harmonize beautifully, adding to the songs' effectiveness and making Seductive Reasoning extraordinarily impressive. ~ William Ruhlmann
This TEST PRESSING LP was made by SPEAKERS CORNER (Germany) // Columbia Records - this is a highly collectible title from their catalog, featuring -
Maggie & Terre Roche
LP title -
Seductive Reasoning
Performers on this title include -
- Maggie Roche (piano, guitar)
Terre Roche (guitar)
Paul Simon (guitar)
Pete Carr (guitar)
Jimmy Johnson (guitar)
Barry Beckett (keyboard)
David Hood (bass)
Roger Hawkins(drums)
Track Listing -
1. Underneath the Moon2. Down the Dream
3. Wigglin' Man
4. West Virginia
5. If You Empty Out All Your Pockets You Could Not Make the Change
6. Telephone Bill
7. Malachy's
8. Burden of Proof
9. The Mountain People
10. Jill of All Trades
For best results, always properly clean your LPs before playing them - even brand new ones!
The LP is an audiophile quality pressing (any collector of fine MFSL, half speeds, direct to discs, Japanese/UK pressings etc., can attest to the difference a quality pressing can make to an audio system).
Don't let this rarity slip by!!!
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