This is the official web site of The Bell Sisters, and it has enjoyed their blessing and bemused assistance. I am their nephew and, all family bias aside, I have always enjoyed their music. In this site, I have gathered all the tidbits the family had squirreled away – photos, recordings, newspaper clippings, personal notes – so that anyone who remembered or knew the Bell Sisters might find more information. Those who have visited the site have contributed even more (see their words and photos on our “Memories” page).

I grew up listening to my famous aunts singing with their five siblings (my mother, three more aunts and an uncle) at Christmas time. Each year, our extended family would gather at my grandparents’ home in Seal Beach, California, and we would carol in the local neighborhood. 

This family caroling was years after the Bell Sisters’ professional career had ended, but many of the songs we sang together were based on arrangements Cynthia and Kay made while performing in the early 1950s. This family tradition was a treat for me, because all of my aunts and uncle had beautiful singing voices and could fall into easy harmony when the occasion called for it. Basically, they sang like damn angels.

I hadn’t thought much about my aunts’ career until 1998 when I rented the 1996 Gramercy film, “Grace of My Heart” (directed by Allison Anders). I was startled to hear my aunts’ song, “Bermuda,” pop into the musical foreground during one of the scenes from the movie.

I called my aunt Cynthia and asked if she knew her song was featured in the movie. We talked quite a while that day and that is how this project began.

I used the Internet – a lot; usually to post eccentric questions to very helpful newsgroups. As I gleaned information from various sources, I would call Cynthia and Kay for hints where to look next. Before long, they had turned over boxes of family memorabilia to help me reconstruct their career (memories had become, over nearly 50 years, a bit clouded as to exact details).

These storage boxes, brought out of garages and attics, held much more material than I expected (I report this happily, with the weak smile of someone who has read countless yellowed articles, listened to dozens of scratchy demo recordings, and thumbed through untold dog-eared photographs).

This web site is now a family effort to archive the many hundreds of newspaper clippings, souvenir programs, home movies, studio videotape, 78 rpm and 45 rpm records, reel to reel tape, etc., which represent the history of the Bell Sisters and, in a broader sense, our family’s love of listening to and performing music. HEAR Cynthia, age 17, talk about her music.

As my aunt Kay put it, “In our family, we sing. It’s the way we speak to each other.”

I would like to thank, in absentia, my grandmother Edith, who carefully kept so much memorabilia and so many notes about their travels (she chaperoned the Bell Sisters to many appearances, including Korea). She kept all of it even after Cynthia told her years ago to “Throw that crap away, mom.”

I have tried to keep this site easy to use (and its pages quick to load). I have listed the Bell Sisters’ recordings and media appearances chronologically. I have limited the main pages to text and a single image of the Bell Sisters in the upper left corner. For more pictures and audio samples, click on the “See the Bells” and “Hear the Bells” links to review the available photos, audio and video files.

If you are interested in purchasing copies of the Bell Sisters’ recordings or appearances, or wish to perform your own research, the “Sources” button will give you a list of those who helped me to collect, organize and confirm the information on this site.

If you are aware of a version or CD release of “Bermuda” not listed on this site, please email me and let me know.

Zippy the Bell Sister Fan In September 2005, cartoonist Bill Griffith including references to the Bell Sisters in his “Zippy the Pinhead” comic strip. He provided the Bell Sisters website with an autographed copy. Click on image for larger size.

If you have memories of the Bell Sisters or their music you’d like to share, or you or anyone you know would like to be added to
our email list for future updates, please let me know at rex@bellsisters.com