It’s rare to find out about Asian musicians in the US mainstream from the ’60s and ’70s, aside from the likes of Kyu Sakamoto or Pink Lady. But, the Kim Sisters from South Korea, were also part of this legacy. Three sisters, Sook-ja, Mi-a, and Ai-ja, they were the daughters of famous Korean music conductor Kim Hae-song (1911 – 1950), a classical music conductor and popular composer who was captured and killed by the North Koreans during the Korean War, and Lee Nan-Young (916 – 1967), one of Korea’s most famous singers before the World War II, best known for her 1935 nationwide hit song, The Tears from Mokpo.
Their mother began performing for the US Troops in the early ’50s, just to survive and feed her seven children, and got the idea of having the sisters become a trio act. The sisters, who didn’t speak any English, learned to sing phonetically. Barely into their teens, with the encouragement and tutelage of their mother, the sisters sang a old country western tune, Hoagy Carmichael’s “Ole’ Buttermilk Sky,” on stage and they soon became wildly popular. The show went well and soon the sisters were singing regularly, all the popular music and early rock’n’roll of the day. Soldiers would give them chocolate bars, which in turn they would trade in for real food on the black market, but it was enough to get by.
The Kim Sisters with Frank Sinatra and their manager, Leonard Esposito
By 1958, they were recruited by an American manager and flown to Las Vegas, where they had a popular revue show at the Thunderbird Hotel. In 1959, they were “discovered” by E Sullivan and would perform 22 times on his nationally televised show over a 14 year span. The Sisters soon became very savvy and were able to bring over the rest of their siblings and had a contract with the Stardust to perform as a family revue.
Here’s a clip that showcases their amazing musical talents. Take that, Wondergirls! 
By the 70s, however, marriages and age caught up and the Kim Sisters stopped performing. Ai-ja, sadly died in 1987 from lung cancer, but the surviving sisters live quiet lives, residing in Las Vegas.
Check out this UNLV Oral History report from 1997, with one of the sisters. It’s quite fascinating and goes into greater depth of what they went through, especially being used and abused by their American manager and how they learned the ropes of the business pretty quickly.
(Via Valerie Soe & UglyChineseCanadian.com)
Pretty awesome, huh? I first heard of them via Anthony Yoosook Kim, who presented an excellent paper on the Kims at the last Asian American Studies Conference, so word is getting out.
Oops, that’s Anthony Yooshin Kim! A brilliant young scholar–
How do I get a copy of that paper?
[...] fellow Offender Anderson brought to our attention the super cute and well dressed Kim Sisters, a band that history might otherwise have left [...]