Jill Jaxx and Jan Bunker photographed in the Arcade Building on June 11, 2024. (photo: John Mattera Photography)

Jan Bunker’s home, nestled in the heart of San Pedro, is a testament to her long and storied life as an entertainer.

There’s the piano in the corner, often played — her dog Gatsby, often played with — and just for today, seated at the dining room table, her twin sister Jill Jaxx, with whom she shares a lifelong career in music.

The sisters recently added another accomplishment to their resumes: authors. Originally from the small town of Junction City, Kansas, they moved to Los Angeles in the 1960s with their band, the Burgundy Street Singers, to pursue an entertainment career. Which One Are You? Twin Tales: From the Heartland to Hollywood chronicles their journey from grade school music classes to performing with stars including Carol Burnett and Frank Sinatra.

A theme running through the book is what they call “twin magic” — the idea that the two of them are linked, in often curious ways, by the circumstances of their birth. Jill explains, “There really is a thing about twin power. We go somewhere together, and stuff will happen,” she says. “We have a force, and we’ve felt lucky, always.”

This force manifests in many ways, one of which is in the Burgundy Street Singers’ origins. While studying at Kansas State, a few students forming a folk rock band took interest in Jan and Jill’s dual voices. According to Jill, “There’s a twin power in the voice. You get the same voice doubled, so everyone loves sisters’ harmonies.” They joined the band and went on to win a national song contest that got the group noticed by music agents. Abandoning their studies, they moved to Hollywood shortly after.

Twin magic also propelled them to center stage within the Singers some years later. Relegated to backup vocals, Jan and Jill assumed the spotlight when their male lead singer came down with laryngitis. This was a big deal at the time — though the women’s liberation movement was underway, Jan recalls how the music industry was still male-dominated.

“Women were not considered anything to deal with. For years, I thought, ‘Oh, I’m just a little background piano player,’” she recalls.

Jill elaborates, describing how filling in for a man changed their trajectory. “We thought we were just the girls, like we couldn’t do anything. But after we took over that night, I thought, ‘Oh yeah, we can do this. We’re not just the girls.’”

Twin magic brought other benefits as well. While touring, the Singers signed as the spokespeople of Budweiser beer, in part due to the sisters’ identical appearance. More publicity meant more gigs, and they eventually found themselves on The Carol Burnett Show, Happy Days, American Bandstand, and others. Jill looks back fondly on that time on the national stage, but her favorite performance was in a more private setting. “We played The Cocoanut Grove with Les Brown’s Band of Renown. Every Hollywood star was in the audience — Debbie Reynolds, Elizabeth Taylor, Henry Mancini, and Jack Nicholson.”

The sisters working for Budweiser as the original ‘Pick a Pair of Six Pack Twins.’ Jill is on the left, Jan on the right. (photo: courtesy Jill Jaxx and Jan Bunker)

Their careers brought other new experiences as well. Moving from Kansas to Los Angeles meant going — in Jan’s words — from where there are “a lot of cows, wheat, and Republicans” to a city where grocery stores stayed open 24 hours a day and smog blanketed the earth like a cloud. They recall eating tacos for the first time (at Taco Bell, no less), to Jill being wooed by a married man (“But you’re married!”), to learning about the existence of both homosexuality and its repressive counterpart, homophobia.

Throughout it all, Jan recalls how they constantly said yes and never no to new experiences. “In the ’60s, it was the hippies and the clean cuts,” she explains, describing the forces that shaped who they would become. “Part of America didn’t want the dope-smoking, long-haired mustache and all that, so they hired us.” She puts on her best Valley girl accent and laughs. “We were so stupid, we were like, ‘Okay!’ It was a time where it seemed like every door opened.”

One of those doors was to their shift from the Singers to a career as a duo — the pair tried their hand at recording their own album as Jan and Jill, securing a deal with none other than Elton John’s agent that set them out on their own.

That’s not to say everything went well. Twin magic showed its uglier side when the sisters married their first husbands, both named Michael. This launched what they describe as the worst periods of their lives. They felt disconnected from each other and themselves. They pulled through in large part because of blind faith.

“I drew on my inner strength,” says Jan, “and said, ‘I’m going to be single, and I’m going to play piano.’ I tried out for a gig when I only knew three songs.”

Jill, meanwhile, left her husband and moved back to Kansas for a short time. “When you’re a musician, you have to have faith in yourself. That’s the only person that does.”

The Burgundy Street Singers. (photo: courtesy Jill Jaxx and Jan Bunker)

After playing in piano bars and pursuing other endeavors, eventually, Jan and Jill became music and voice teachers and settled permanently in Los Angeles. Today, Jan has since retired from teaching and volunteers at Harbor Animal Care Center, finding homes for the hundreds of animals in residence needing families. Jill runs her YouTube channel with over two million subscribers, “Learn to Sing Better Fast,” while also teaching vocal lessons to students locally and around the world.

They both still perform, too. Jill and her students put on shows for local retirement communities, while Jan plays privately at her home. And, of course, they’re still deeply tied to each other — through twin magic or otherwise.

With Jill’s prompting, Jan recites the lyrics of a song she wrote years back. “The veil has lifted, born together. Innocent souls, entwined forever. Closer than sisters, never apart. Where does she end? Where do I start?” spt

Which One Are You? Twin Tales: From the Heartland to Hollywood is available at Amazon.com. For more info, visit janandjilltales.com.