The Secret Sisters

Formed in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, the country-folk duo Secret Sisters unites siblings Lydia (Rogers) Slagle and Laura Rogers, whose effortless harmonies, incisive songwriting, and devotion to country traditions first reached listeners in 2010. Their 2014 album Put Your Needle Down refreshed that vintage approach through girl group-infused garage-folk, while two subsequent LPs produced by Brandi Carlile—You Don't Own Me Anymore (2017) and Saturn Return (2020)—blended both eras and earned Grammy nominations. The 2024 release Mind, Man, Medicine marked their most contemporary statement to date, shaped by motherhood and the pandemic years, and featured the duet “All the Ways” with Ray LaMontagne.

Early on, the sisters sharpened their skills in any available setting until legendary producer and songwriter T-Bone Burnett discovered them. Impressed enough to launch Beladroit solely for their debut, he oversaw sessions that paired the Rogers sisters with classic Nashville musicians using 1950s-era gear; Secret Sisters appeared in October 2010. They also issued a single through Jack White’s Third Man Records that included Carl Broemel of My Morning Jacket on pedal steel and White himself on guitar. Burnett again handled production for the follow-up, Put Your Needle Down, which arrived on New West Records and carried the sound forward a decade with folky garage-rock and girl-group accents.

Their third album, the 2017 Brandi Carlile-produced You Don't Own Me Anymore, showcased quiet grandeur alongside steely Southern pragmatism and brought the sisters their first Grammy nomination for Best Folk Album. Carlile returned for Saturn Return, released in early 2020 and likewise nominated, by which point both Slagle and Rogers had become mothers for the first time. In mid-2021 the duo quietly released the four-song EP Quicksand, containing two originals plus covers of Fiona Apple’s “Heavy Balloon” and the Strokes’ “Someday.”

Parenthood and the COVID-19 era supplied fresh perspective that informed the next batch of material. Working with John Paul White of the Civil Wars and Ben Tanner of Alabama Shakes, the Secret Sisters delivered Mind, Man, Medicine in 2024—their most self-assured and modern-sounding work while still nodding to longstanding influences—and enlisted Ray LaMontagne for the bluesy single “All the Ways.”