Search - Maggie and Terre Roche :: Seductive Reasoning

When a 35 year-old record sounds like it could have been made yesterday, it tells you two things. First, the music it contains is by definition timeless. And, two, it s a pretty good bet that when it first came out, that record was ahead of its time. Such is the case with the first album from the Roche family. Maggie and Terre Roche were fresh from singing backup on Paul Simon's 1973 album There Goes Rhymin' Simon when they went into the studio to record Seductive Reasoning with the same Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section and production team (the Yardbirds' Paul Samwell-Smith and, on one track, Simon himself) that had made Rhymin' Simon. Yet, for all its star power, the real focus of the album was Maggie Roche s impressionistic, intensely personal songwriting and the beautiful, stunning harmonies struck by the two sisters. Which has a lot to do with why this 1975 release never made a commercial splash. If radio was simply not ready for Seductive Reasoning s brash blend of folk, country and pop styles the same blend that today characterizes so many "alternative" acts--it certainly was not ready for a female songwriter who avoided hippie platitudes and bucolic yearnings in favor of stream-of-consciousness urban streetscapes and post-feminist attitudes towards love and sex, all leavened by a sweet vulnerability. Indeed, Seductive Reasoning lives up to its title it hits you both in the heart and in the head.

This new Real Gone reissue marks the first time in over a decade the album has been available on CD, and features the original front cover album artwork along with track-by-track commentary by Maggie Roche and pictures from her archive.