Kossoy Sisters

The Kossoy Sisters are identical twin[1] sisters (Irene Saletan and Ellen Christenson) who performed American folk and old-time music. Irene sang mezzo-soprano vocal, and Ellen supplied soprano harmony, with Irene on guitar and Ellen playing the five-string banjo in a traditional up-picking technique. Their performances were notable examples of close harmony singing. They began performing professionally in their mid-teens and are esteemed as a significant part of the popular folk music movement that started in the mid-1950s.

Kossoy Sisters
Born(1938-05-11)May 11, 1938
New York City, New York, U.S.
OriginGreenwich Village, New York City
GenresFolk
Instrument(s)Vocal
Years active1956–1960s, 1981, 2002–2003
MembersIrene Saletan, Ellen Christenson (born Irene and Ellen Kossoy)
WebsiteKossoySisters.com

Career

When they were 17, the Kossoy Sisters recorded the album Bowling Green, which features close harmonies, with instrumental accompaniment by Erik Darling.[2] The two were introduced to a new audience when their version of "I'll Fly Away" from this album was used in the 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou?.[3] Another song from the same album, the Kossoys' version of "Single Girl, Married Girl", is heard on the soundtrack of the 2014 film release Obvious Child.[4]

The sisters performed at the first Newport Folk Festival in July 1959[5][6] and returned to Newport to perform again in 2012, over 50 years later. Producer Harold Leventhal included them in the March 17, 1956 Bound for Glory tribute/benefit concert at New York's Pythian Hall[7][8] for the hospitalized Woody Guthrie and his children.[9] For an overflow audience of more than a thousand,[10] they sang three of Guthrie's songs,[11] exhibiting "sweet harmonizing," as Pete Seeger later recounted.[12] In 1971 and other occasions they performed at the Fox Hollow Folk Festival in Petersburgh, New York.[13]

Irene and her former husband Tony Saletan performed together, during their marriage, as Tony and Irene Saletan. In 1964, the couple also joined with Jackie Washington Landrón to form the Boston Folk Trio,[14] to present school concerts through the non-profit Young Audiences Arts for Learning. The Saletans released an album together, Folk Songs and Ballads, in 1970 on Folk-Legacy Records. Irene and Tony also released a seven-inch vinyl recording of four songs for the Boston Mutual Life Insurance Company, titled The Ballad of Boston and Other New England Folk Tunes,[15] and Revolutionary Tea (with Irene listed as one of the Yankee Tunesmiths), on Old North Bridge Records, 1975.[16]

A second Kossoy Sisters CD, Hop on Pretty Girls, appeared in 2002 on the Living Folk label.[17] A noncommercial CD, Kossoy Sisters, is available from Public Radio Station WBUR in Boston. It is a recording of an interview with the twins on February 23, 2003, during their promotional tour for "Hop on Pretty Girls."[2] Over the years, the sisters also made live appearances together from time to time. They toured California in 1981 and have appeared in the Boston area, Washington DC, New York, Pinewoods Camp, various venues in the St. Louis area, and numerous other locations.

Personal lives

Irene and Ellen Kossoy were born on May 11, 1938, in New York City. The twins began singing together at about the age of six, in imitation of harmonies created in the home by their mother and aunt. At 15, they attended a summer camp at which Pete Seeger and other well-known folk singers often performed, and they developed a life-long attachment to the genre. They quickly discovered the bustling folk music scene in the Greenwich Village section of New York City and mingled with the people who congregated in Washington Square Park.[6]

The Kossoys attended local schools in New York City and went on to graduate from Blackburn College in Carlinville, Illinois. Soon after completion of their formal studies, each of the sisters married. Ellen moved to St. Louis and Irene settled in the Boston area. Ellen has a son and a daughter, and Irene has a son and a daughter. Each of the sisters later divorced, after which they again became housemates. As of 2022, they were retired and living together in Guatemala.[18]

Discography
  • Bowling Green, Tradition 1956[19] – rereleased by Rykodisc in 1996, released again by Rykodisc as part of the three-disc set The Best of the Bluegrass Tradition (although the music on the Kossoys' recording is not bluegrass)
  • Hop on Pretty Girls, Living Folk 2002[20]
  • Kossoy Sisters – recording of an interview from the National Public Radio program "On Point", February 23, 2003
  • Banjo Music of the Southern Appalachians, Erik Darling, Olympic (date unknown) (The Kossoy Sisters appear on this record.)
  • Instrumental Music and Songs of Southern Appalachians, Erik Darling (The last 10 tracks of this CD, uncredited but all sung by the Kossoy Sisters, appear to be copied from Banjo Music of the Southern Appalachians.)

References
  1. "About". The Kossoy Sisters. Archived from the original on 18 January 2019. Retrieved 21 July 2019.
  2. "The Timeless Kossoy Sisters". WBUR. 2003-02-21. Archived from the original on 2008-06-22.
  3. Linda Seida. "The Kossoy Sisters – Biography". AllMusic. Archived from the original on 30 January 2014. Retrieved 6 September 2017.
  4. Trooper (2 June 2014). "The Obvious Child Soundtrack List". SoundtrackMania. Retrieved 22 April 2018.
  5. Cohen, Ronald (2002). Rainbow Quest: The Folk Music Revival and American Society, 1940-1970. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. p. 145. ISBN 9781558493469.
  6. Jon Johnson (January 2003). "O Kossoy Sisters, where art thou been?". Country Standard Time. Archived from the original on 15 February 2009. Retrieved 21 July 2019.
  7. Cohen, Ronald (2002). Rainbow Quest: The Folk Music Revival and American Society, 1940-1970. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. p. 105. ISBN 9781558493469.
  8. "Tribute to Harold Leventhal". Woody Guthrie. Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc. Retrieved 27 July 2021.
  9. Stadler, Gustavus (2020). Woody Guthrie: An Intimate Life. Boston: Beacon Press. p. 190. ISBN 9780807018910.
  10. Cohen, Ronald (2002). Rainbow Quest: The Folk Music Revival and American Society, 1940-1970. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. p. 105. ISBN 9781558493469.
  11. "Bound For Glory Concert Program Pythian Hall NYC Woody Guthrie". Amazon.com. Retrieved 14 January 2022.
  12. Seeger, Pete (1972). Schwartz, Jo Metcalf (ed.). The Incompleat Folksinger. New York: Fireside Books, Simon and Schuster. p. 172. ISBN 0-671-22304-6.
  13. Kossoy Sisters, with Tony Saletan & Robin Christenson. "'Belle Starr' (Fox Hollow 1971)". YouTube. David Usher. Archived from the original on December 5, 2015. Retrieved 27 July 2014.
  14. Barretta, Scott, ed. (2013). The Conscience of the Folk Revival: The Writings of Israel "Izzy" Young. Scarecrow Press, Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 86, 101.
  15. Saletan, Tony; Saletan (Kossoy), Irene. "The Ballad of Boston". Discogs. Retrieved 10 November 2019.
  16. Saletan, Tony; The Yankee Tunesmiths. "Revolutionary Tea". Discogs. Retrieved 10 November 2019.
  17. The Kossoy Sisters. "Hop on Pretty Girls". AllMusic. RhythmOne Group. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
  18. "Home Is Where the Fuego Volcano Is". Eruptions at the Foot of the Volcano. Blogspot. 10 May 2014. Retrieved 23 February 2022.
  19. William Ruhlmann. "Bowling Green – Erik Darling, Ellen Kossoy, Irene Kossoy – Songs, Reviews, Credits". AllMusic. Archived from the original on 18 January 2016. Retrieved 6 September 2017.
  20. "Hop on Pretty Girls". The Kossoy Sisters. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
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