Kossoy Sisters


The Kossoy Sisters are identical twin sisters who performed American folk and old-time music. In their music, Irene sang mezzo-soprano vocal, and Ellen supplied soprano harmony, with Irene on guitar and Ellen played 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 midteens and are esteemed as a significant part of the popular folk music movement that started in the mid-1950s.

Career

When they were 17, the Kossoy Sisters recorded the album Bowling Green, which features close harmonies, with instrumental accompaniment by Erik Darling. 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?. 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.
The sisters performed in the first Newport Folk Festival in 1959 and returned to Newport to perform again in 2012, over 50 years later. They also were in the original stage production of Woody Guthrie's Bound for Glory and at the Fox Hollow Folk Festival in Petersburgh, New York.
Irene and her former husband Anthony D. Saletan performed together, during their marriage, as Tony and Irene Saletan. They 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, and Revolutionary Tea, on Old North Bridge Records, 1975.
A second Kossoy Sisters CD, "Hop on Pretty Girls", appeared in 2002 on the Living Folk label. 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." Over the years, the sisters also performed live 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, United States. 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.
The sisters 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.

Discography