Biography

A celebrated vocalist and songwriter, Suzzy Roche is best known as one-third of the sibling harmony group the Roches, though she's enjoyed a rich creative life of her own since the trio broke up. Suzzy provided the middle voice in the Roches, and on her own, her singing has a charming, emotionally warm tone that works well with her clever and gently quirky songs about love and life's foibles. While she's recorded as a solo act, she seems especially comfortable harmonizing with others, first with her sisters and later with her daughter. 2000's Songs from an Unmarried Housewife and Mother, Greenwich Village, USA was an exceptional solo effort from Suzzy, 2002's Zero Church was a collaboration with her sister Maggie Roche, and 2020's I Can Still Hear You found her working alongside her daughter, Lucy Wainwright Roche. Suzzy Roche was born in Park Ridge, New Jersey on September 29, 1956. Her older sisters Maggie Roche (born in 1951) and Terre Roche (born in 1953) are talented vocalists and songwriters, and Suzzy would eventually follow suit. Maggie and Terre were performing as a duo when they were discovered by Paul Simon, who brought them in to sing harmonies on his 1973 album There Goes Rhymin' Simon and produced an album for the duo, 1975's Seductive Reasoning. The album earned positive reviews but didn't rack up impressive sales, and when Maggie and Terre regrouped, they added Suzzy to the act and adopted the group name the Roches. Their clever songcraft, both poignant and witty, and superb harmonies won them a significant following in the East Coast folk community, which led to a record deal with Warner Bros. Their self-titled 1979 debut, produced by Robert Fripp, earned rave reviews, and while it was far from a hit, it launched a loyal cult following that would continue to support the siblings through their career, releasing ten albums between 1979 and 1995. In the late '70s and early '80s, Suzzy was romantically involved with singer and songwriter Loudon Wainwright III, and in 1981, they became the parents of a daughter, Lucy Wainwright Roche. She also launched a second career as an actor in this period, making her screen debut in the 1982 film Soup for One, and latter appearing in Almost You, Crossing Delancey, and My New Gun. In 1997, the Roches went on indefinite hiatus, and that same year, Suzzy brought out her first solo effort, Holy Smoke, the title taken from one of her father's favorite expressions (he died while the sisters were touring in support of their 1994 children's album, Will You Be My Friend?). A second LP, the eclectic and personal Songs from an Unmarried Housewife and Mother, Greenwich Village, USA, appeared in 2000. Suzzy reunited with Maggie Roche for 2002's Zero Church, and they cut another duo set, Why the Long Face, in 2004. While Suzzy made guest appearances on others' albums (including Rufus Wainwright, the Indigo Girls, Beck, and Dar Williams), she didn't record as a headliner until the Roches briefly reunited to cut 2007's Moonswept. (It was the final LP from the trio; Maggie Roche died after a struggle with cancer in 2017.) Suzzy continued to find work in acting, and often appeared with New York's celebrated experimental theater company the Wooster Group. In 2012, Suzzy became a published novelist with the release of her first book, Wayward Saints; the following year, she penned a book for children, Want to Be in a Band? By 2013, her daughter Lucy Wainwright Roche was beginning to make a name for herself as a musician, and Lucy and Suzzy issued a collaborative album, Fairytale and Myth, the same year. The mother/daughter duo went back to the studio for a second album together, 2016's Mud and Apples. In 2020, Suzzy published her second novel, The Town Crazy, as well as delivering her third album with Lucy, I Can Still Hear You. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi