Laura and Lydia Rogers grew up in the musically infamous Muscle Shoals, Alab., and were raised listening to essential country and bluegrass music. They’ve retained that traditional style to the tee in their work as The Secret Sisters, and their performance on a sunny festival afternoon was near perfect. It included a number of covers, such as George Jones’ “Why Baby Why," Patsy Cline’s “Leavin’ On Your Mind” and Hank Williams’ “Your Cheatin’ Heart;” the latter two showing Lydia to be a vocal wonder. She gave me chills more than once, dipping low with her sultry touch only to then raise her voice up an octave mid-note – she sings in a way I forgot people could, and it adds a sublimely retro feeling to their songs. Laura also has gorgeous vocals, and the two complement each other in a silky kind of way that melts your ears.
The two switched back and forth on guitar duty, and Laura filled the silence between songs with numerous stories about their history. They also talked of how they had toured with Willie Nelson, and how they felt terrible for him after he was last arrested for marijuana possession. To give hope to the wish that he never has to deal with the law again, they did a rendition of “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain,” which they said his judge had forced him to sing, in trade for keeping him out of jail.
It was obvious these were two down-home Southern gals that want to never lose their background, and they admitted they like singing covers so much because “all the good songs have already been written.” Their debut, self-titled album features many of them, plus a few of their own songs, and was executive produced by T-Bone Burnett – it seems, with a recipe such as that, they could remind Nashville of the way country music used to sound. And that would be appreciated by anyone who likes music.
