Music has been a constant in Lisa Morales’ life, dating back to childhood days singing mariachi songs with her sister Roberta at Mexican restaurants in Tucson, Arizona. From those precious beginnings, she’s gone on to a tremendous career. The core of her musical journey has been Sisters Morales, a collaboration with her sister Roberta, who passed away from cancer in 2021. Beyond that, as a songwriter, performer, and producer, she’s worked with an impressive array of artists, including David Hidalgo (Los Lobos), Rodney Crowell, Los Lonely Boys, Hayes Carll, and Eliza Gilkyson, to name just a few.
“Hermanitas in the Rain”, from Morales’ forthcoming solo album Sonora, is a beautiful and personal reflection on their life together. The song moves from childhood memories of playing in the rain through to a moving conclusion marked by her sister’s final days.
Says Morales about the song:
I started writing this song 3 days before my sister, Roberta, passed. I went into her room to have her help me with it but it was hard. I had all these beautiful memories flooding back to me in that moment. I wrote it all in a matter of minutes but didn’t realize it was done, music and all, until I brought it back out a year and a half later. When we were little girls in Tucson, AZ the monsoon rains in July and August would fill the busy street around the block. Roberta would grab me, and we would sit on the curb to get splashed by the cars driving by! I put in pieces of our culture in this song, lyrically. Mom crawled to the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico City to be able to have us—in the song I refer to “Guadalupe.-she watches over.
Twangville is honored to premiere the video for “Hermanitas in the Rain”, the first single from Lisa Morales’ Sonora.
About the author: Mild-mannered corporate executive by day, excitable Twangville denizen by night.