Fifty-seven years go – 1965 – big hair and girl groups were all the rage with the cool kids in East Los Angeles.
Sisters Rosella, Ersi, and Mary Arvizu believed they could be the next Supremes — even before there were Supremes. They called themselves The Sisters.
Mark Guerrero, son of Chicano music legend Lalo Guerrero, tells the story:
In the mid-1960s in East L.A., The Sisters were the Eastside’s answer to Motown’s Supremes. Like The Supremes, they were three well-dressed, classy, female vocalists who could sing extremely well. The Sisters were actually formed several months before The Supremes burst on the national scene. However, according to Ersi and Rosella, although they liked and were influenced by The Supremes, they were more influenced by other female vocal groups such as Martha & the Vandelas and The Ronettes. The Sisters recorded three singles in 1965 for Bob Keane’s DelFi Records and were a fixture on the East L.A. music circuit of the era.
Ersi went on to sing with El Chicano on their second album, “Revolution,” where she provided the lead vocal to their classic recording of “Sabor a Mi.”