Texas twins deliver unique harmonies

Though identical twins April and Amy Rankin have been singing since they first started talking, it took a headache to push them into gear.

The sisters, who perform as The Rankin Twins, focused mostly on the karaoke circuit while in college and had just begun playing a few gigs with a new band in Dallas when Amy learned in 2008 that she had a benign tumor the size of a walnut in her brain.

"The doctors were all really optimistic about removing it, so I took on that real positive approach and had that outlook," Amy said.

"It was a blessing in disguise," she said. "We look at life in a different way now. We don't want to regret not doing something, so since then, it's been gung ho, full force ahead.

"Two surgeries later, I wrote 'Headaches & Heartbreaks,' our first single."

In the four years since, the sisters have released two EPs and are working on their first full-length album.

They make their Amarillo debut on Thursday at the Golden Light Cantina, 2906 S.W. Sixth Ave.

"We really haven't needed a full album, but now for us, we have so many unrecorded songs that we want to get out there for people," Amy said.

"The more you write, the better you get," April said.

The sisters started singing to echo their grandmother, who could turn any conversation into a song.

"After college, when Amy wrote her first song, we started harmonizing together," April said.

"We have slightly different voices, so we always sang the same," she said. "When we started writing our own music though, for some reason, the harmonies came naturally."