The Secret Sisters
From the choice of material to the arrangements to the impressive close harmonies and overall sound, the Secret Sisters convincingly nail their tribute to nostalgic classic country on their debut release. Backed by a band of ace Nashville studio musicians and producers T-Bone Burnett and Dave Cobb, sisters Lydia and Laura Rogers lend their sweet, angelic voices to two original compositions, a couple of numbers from the public domain, and reverent covers of classics by Bill Monroe (“The One I Love Is Gone”), Buck Owens (“My Heart Skips a Beat”), and Hank Williams (“Why Don’t You Love Me,” “House of Gold”). Their version of the pop standard “Somethin’ Stupid” fits seamlessly next to their own songs “Tennessee Me” and “Waste the Day,” in both form and content, and they all sound like lost recordings from the mid-1950s. This is a truly charming debut that’s easy to fall in love with.
Lydia and Laura Rogers grew up in Muscle Shoals, harmonizing in church and singing along to The Everly Brothers. With a background like that, a recording career almost seems inevitable, and the sisters’ self-titled debut seals that impression from the first notes of the lovely opener, “Tennessee Me,” a self-penned…
Not many can manage it, but on their self-titled debut album, the Secret Sisters seem to have successfully brought classic country sounds into the present with a feeling of timelessness rather than dusty archive-spelunking.
A great friend of mine, also a great musician, once told me that to produce a successful cover song, you must maintain the integrity of the original while...
The Secret Sisters' obsession with authenticity gets in the way of the real fun, writes <strong>Alexis Petridis</strong>