Sisters Morales

A veritable spectrum of sounds and styles can be heard in the music created by Lisa and Roberta Morales and their longtime multi-guitar cohort David Spencer: Music rooted in the Southwestern spirit of Texas (where they live in San Antonio), Arizona (where the sisters grew up) and Mexico (their family and cultural roots) by artists raised on everything from The Beatles to Buffalo Springfield, from Sinatra to the Funny Girl soundtrack, from Cash to Haggard. It’s music created by muses that are open vessels in which the colors and hues of so many musical skeins beautifully interplay with words written from the crux where the heart meets the mind. And then sung with that genetic helix of harmony that comes from growing up in a very musical family.

Hence Talking To The River, the fourth album by Sisters Morales — and most definitive to date — is one of those discs that could be stocked throughout your favorite record store and heard on any number of radio formats. It was produced by Steve Berlin of the esteemed Chicano rock’n’roll band Los Lobos, who also cross borders between genres with a similar natural delight and have adopted Sisters Morales as their “- manitas” (beloved little sisters). “We just knew Steve would get our music,” Lisa says. “He was just so perfect for it,” adds Roberta. Proof of that comes on first play of what is sure to be many more through the 12 songs of Talking To The River.

Bilingual in its lyrics and multilingual to the max in the styles it draws from, the album places the sisters’ songs and voices at the front of a delectable musical offering alongside Spencer’s luminously artful guitar work. It’s a musically and personally mature work — yet still full of youthful élan — that contemplates life and love with a worldly wisdom… and beats you can dance to. The opening track, “You’re Losing Me To No One,” spotlights the musically variegated Sisters Morales sound at the outset as it fuses a downhome blues vibe with a Latin rhythm. They rock down in the swamp on “Right From The Start,” in the Texas countryside on the Zen-like “Time Off and Peace” and along the Southwestern border with “It’s Time.”

And the sisters’ Mexican roots get infused with a rock’n’roll spirit on “La Canoera” and “La Mucura.” Two six-minutes-plus dazzlers are among the disc’s highlights: The hypnotic“World Goes Round,” with a Spencer guitar workout on an extended coda that reminds of Eric Clapton and Duane Allman in their Layla heyday, and the majestic strains of the stirring title song. The effervescent sisterly harmonies of Lisa and Roberta shine on “I Won’t Stand Still,” “Say Goodbye” and “Whatcha Gonna Do About It” and imbue the melancholy closer, “Where Is Love,” with all the fullness of a perfect grace note. All told, it’s a disc that’s rich with spirit, soulfulness and smarts that showcases a genre-defying originality that’s become the Sisters Morales trademark.

Find more information and music on the Sisters Morales website.