When it comes to musical style, you might say the Sisters Morales have multiple personalities.

And they have their family to thank for it.

Their dad used to bring home albums by Frank Sinatra, Johnny Cash and Dionne Warwick. Their mom exposed them to world music by artists like Amalia Rodriguez. Their brother grooved on Jimi Hendrix, Buffalo Springfield and the Beatles; and their sister was into pop.

So what do Lisa and Roberta Morales play now that they’ve reunited to play gigs across the country?

“It’s everything we ever listened to growing up all mixed together at once,” Lisa Morales says. “We had a lot of influences from every person in our family. It was great to grow up with all that.”

Their eclectic fusion of rock, country, blues, folk and Latin makes the Sisters Morales an ideal act for the Lied Center’s Free Outdoor Concert, says Karen Christilles.

Sisters Morales (Lisa, left, and Roberta) will play a free concert at 7 p.m. today at the Lied Center.

“Our goal is to have artists that are cross-generational and so music that is fun for all ages and also music that appeals to a lot of different musical tastes and styles,” says Christilles, associate director of the Lied Center. “We really hit it on the head with Sisters Morales. They’re just really warm, open and inviting in terms of the way that they approach their music and the way that they try to include the audience.”

The San Antonio-based duo is the centerpiece of tonight’s Family Arts Festival, which features organizations from the Lawrence area, as well as prize giveaways, balloons, clowns and face painting.

“This concert continues to be a kick off to our season and a welcome to the community,” Christilles says.

Sisters Morales’ Lawrence appearance won’t be their first in Kansas. They played at the Smoky Hill River Festival in Salina last year, when Lisa was about six months pregnant.

“It was wonderful,” she recalls. “I craved lemonade, and there were a million lemonade stands. I was in heaven.”

Blood ties

Growing up in a Mexican family in Tucson, Ariz., Lisa and Roberta sang in Spanish long before they sang in English. They got their first taste of the stage at an early age.

“My dad would make us perform at the Mexican restaurants (with mariachis) when we were 4 and 5 years old,” Lisa says.

• Clips of Sisters Morales songs:
• It Only Gets Better
• Break This Fall
• Teardrops
• Too Deep of Water (dedicated to all cancer victims and survivors)

Both sisters knew that music was in their blood, but it would take years and divergent paths before they discovered the inherently rich harmonies of a family band.

After high school, the women parted ways. Lisa’s career took her to Germany and Texas. Roberta ventured to Dallas, San Francisco and Japan. Each found musical success on her own.

But when Lisa needed a backup vocalist for a project she was working on in Houston, she called her sister. That was 1989, and the two have been making music together ever since.

“It was perfect timing because we knew who we were separately and our insecurities weren’t so big,” Lisa says.

The sisters have released three albums on their own label, Luna Records: “Ain’t No Perfect Diamond (1997), “Someplace Far Away From Here” (1999), and “Para Gloria” (2002), an all-Spanish album of Mexican standards named in honor of their mother.

The sisters feel equally at home singing in English and Spanish.

“Both are very comfortable because with one we’re singing our lives and the other we’re singing our culture,” Lisa says. “It’s funny: Right now the traditional Mexican stuff is getting so much attention, and we didn’t write any of it. People come up to us and say that we sing from a different place when we sing in Spanish – that it’s much deeper and from the soul.”

‘One goal, one group’

As far as the sisters are concerned, all of their music digs deep these days. Their writing confronts their parents’ early divorce and the death of their father when they were just teenagers. It also reflects the raw emotions that surfaced during Roberta’s battle with sarcoma.

“She had five operations in one year in 1995,” Lisa says. “We had a record deal at the same time, and everything fell apart. Now that we’re on the other side of it, we’re in such a wonderful place in our lives. … The music we’re making now is just so much better.”

Guitarist David Spencer, percussionist Vicente Rodriguez and bassist Michael Traylor round out the sisters’ sound. The chemistry now is better than it’s ever been, Lisa says, and Sisters Morales is in a good place.

“Right now we’re just making music,” Lisa says. “It doesn’t feel like a bunch of egos on stage. It just feels like one goal, one group. You look for that for years.”