The sound of the DeCastro Sisters is being revived on new CD compilations

Kimberley McGee

Monday, July 12, 1999 | 9:33 a.m.

"I can't believe they remember (us) still," says Cherie DeCastro -- one of the original members of the DeCastro Sisters, along with Peggy and Babette -- about the group's long-ago fame.

The Cuban-born musical sisters made it big in 1955 with their No. 1 -- and only -- hit, "Teach Me Tonight." Today they continue to dust off their once-time celebrity status to play to small, dedicated crowds, both new and nostalgic, who remember the sisters' heyday.

"It was a wonderful time," DeCastro says of the group's rise to '50s fame.

Babette, who died seven years ago from cancer, was replaced in the late '70s by cousin Olgita, who, along with Cherie, lives in Las Vegas. Peggy lives in Northern California.

Although they only had one major hit, it was solid enough to keep the sisters in the public eye over the last half-century. "Teach Me Tonight" has since been recorded by Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee and Al Jarreau, among many others, and is a pop standard.

The sisters are scheduled to perform at Carnegie Hall in New York City on Dec. 1 for the "All-Star Salute to Noel Coward," a commemoration of the late British legend's 100th birthday. The DeCastros will perform in honor of his debut at the Stardust hotel-casino in 1955, for which they were the opening act. (The sisters last performed in Las Vegas in 1997.)

A German record company, Bear Family Records, recently bought the sisters' original recordings from RCA and Abbott record companies and will release a new compact disc of their songs next month.

Equinox Records is also jumping on the bandwagon and will release a compilation CD of the sisters' early Latin material, which includes five tracks with legendary Afro-cuban musician and band leader, Tito Puente.

The DeCastro's nephew and fan club president, Jimmy Carricaburu, works as a liaison for the group, which receives between 15 and 20 letters monthly from fans young and old -- from servicemen to homemakers -- with requests for pictures and autographs.

"When you see them on stage, they are just such an impressive stage act," Carricaburu says. "They are not headliners anymore and they still put on a show" as if they were opening at New York's renowned, defunct Copacabana club, which they did in the '50s.

The letter from the young serviceman in Bosnia is an example of the resurgence of the music made popular when the country was dripping with American pride after World War II, in the 1940s through the early 1960s.

The DeCastro Sisters are one of the last original groups of the era that continue to croon classics to a live audience.

"They are very entertaining," Buddy Greco, a longtime Las Vegas performer, says. "They tease each other (on stage)."

The DeCastro Sisters recently completed the "Fabulous Fifties" tour with Greco, actress Gloria DeHaven and the original Ink Spots group.

"The reason they have been around so long ... when you are doing something that is right and it's done elegantly with taste, you will always be popular," Greco says. "What they do is timeless and people all over the world have finally realized that there are not many of us left."

Time may be passing, but the sisters aren't wasting any of it, singing the songs of yesteryear that live on in the youngsters of today. Credit that to the resurgence in popularity of swing dancing among Gen X'ers.

"It's classic, our music will never die," Greco says.

The DeCastro's story begins in their native Cuba, where as teens they performed at friends' parties and church socials, belting out American ballads.

"We sounded like the Andrew Sisters," Cherie DeCastro says of the trio's early days. "We listened to their records and we did all their songs."

Soon they were playing Cuban nightclubs and hotels under the watchful eye of their strict Catholic parents. "Everything we wore, they approved," she says.

"People liked us because we sounded like (the Andrew Sisters). Then one day (in the '40s) someone said they are really coming to Cuba, and I thought "Oh! they are going to discover us,' " and be upset that they were imitating the group.

Year later Cherie DeCastro met one of the Andrew Sisters in a Hollywood nightclub bathroom.

"I said, 'I'm so glad to meet you!' and I said who I was and (where I was from) and she said ... 'Where is Cuba?' " DeCastro says.

While still performing as the Cuban version of the Andrew Sisters, the Fernandez-DeCastro Sisters, as they were then billed, were discovered by an American music manager who took the girls to Miami. Again, mother and father were in tow with their daughters, who were in their early 20s.

"They were our chaperone, we couldn't date, we were old-fashioned for the time even," Cherie DeCastro says.

Once in Miami things heated up for the girls. They began a tour of the United States, through New York's Radio City Music Hall all the way to sunny California, where the trio -- their parents still peering over their shoulders -- were discovered in a small club, the Club Brazil, by actress and salsa singer Carmen Miranda.

"She came into the club, and she had this huge entourage and she just took over," Cherie DeCastro says. "She came over and asked us if we would sing in her movie," which was titled "Dynamite Wrapped in Glamour."

Club Brazil became a popular night spot for stars of the era -- Desi Arnaz and wife Lucille Ball, among others.

"Every night there was somebody (famous) in there," Cherie DeCastro says. Although the sisters were getting noticed, they weren't always getting paid.

"We knew if we were getting a lot of tacos and enchiladas, we weren't getting paid" for that night's work, she says.

During filming of Miranda's movie, in which the trio was featured in two scenes, the young DeCastros were nicknamed "The DeCastrated Sisters" by Groucho Marx because of their conservative dress and chaperoned lifestyle.

"He said, 'Show some leg, you are all wrapped up!' " she says.

Their parents relented -- a bit -- and the girls' costumes, although down to the floor, were bare mid-riffed and slit all the way up ... to the knee.

"We listened to our father and mother, anything they said," Cherie DeCastro says.

Then the girls met Bob Lilley, who later married Peggy DeCastro and slowly took over management of the group and its burgeoning career.

It would make them more famous, but caused a riff that resulted in an on-again, off-again relationship among the sisters.

Cherie DeCastro recalls that Lilley knew songwriter Sammy Kahn, who had written "Teach Me Tonight." "Peggy liked it -- but (Kahn) said, 'Two years we've been trying to sell it but nobody wants it, it's a loser,' and Peggy said, 'Give us a chance.' "

The lyrics -- "one thing isn't very clear, my love/should the teacher stand so near, my love/graduation's almost here, my love/teach me tonight" -- were sexually suggestive and bold for the time.

The hit brought them to the showrooms of Las Vegas, where they opened for Coward. The group continued to play here through the '50s and early '60s.

"I had heard of Noel Coward when I was a little girl. He was very famous, and when they told us we were going to co-star with him, we met him and thought he was going to be real uppity -- don't approach him," Cheri DeCastro says.

with his valet in tow, Coward, she recalls, had his wine served on a little round table backstage before the show, and when the sisters finished warming up the audience -- which included Frank Sinatra and others from the Rat Pack -- Coward would ask how the audience was.

"We always said it was wonderful," she says. This backstage banter brought the sisters under Coward's illustrious wing. "(The celebrities) loved him, and for us it was wonderful because we got to meet all these big stars ... when they saw we were friends with him, we were part of it."

Although the act has changed over the years -- as families were raised and solo careers were tested -- the sisters reunited over the years in harmony. When Babette bowed out of the group to concentrate on her family, cousin Olgita stepped in with a voice that matched the missing member's almost perfectly.

Earlier this year the McGuire Sisters, another fabled singing sibling act, told the Sun that sisters have a clearer "genetic blend" to their harmonizing.

Cherie DeCastro agrees. "When you are sisters," she says, "you are family and you just blend better."

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