Hallyu in the Sixties

2013-10-06 17:38

Hallyu in the Sixties

Michael Duffy
Long before the current international craze for K-pop, and before Gangnam Style’s 1.7 billion hits on YouTube, there was another Korean act that achieved considerable success in the United States if on a slightly more modest level than Psy. This was the Kim Sisters —Sook-ja (the eldest), Mi-ja, and Ae-ja. The sisters came from a distinguished musical family; their father, Kim Hae-song, had been a popular singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist from the 1920s, and their mother, Lee Nan-young, recorded one of the most popular songs of Korea’s Japanese colonial period, “Mokpoeui Nunmul” (Tears of Mokpo). Following its release in 1935, the record sold over 50,000 copies, a huge number for the time.Encouraged by their mother, the sisters started their show business career just after the Korean War. Though they didn’t speak English, they built up a repertoire of popular American songs that they learned phonetically, and performed them at U.S. army camps. Their energetic shows proved a huge hit with the homesick GIs and in 1958, after word got back in the U.S. about the “Korean Andrews Sisters,” they were hired to perform in a Las Vegas hotel.
Once in America, a combination of talent and hard work (and just a little luck) launched the sisters on a career which lasted two decades. The lucky break came in 1959, when they made a favorable impression on the host of America’s foremost TV variety show, Ed Sullivan.
His show, which ran weekly on CBS TV from 1948 to 1971, was enormously influential: Elvis Presley, Itzhak Perlman and the Beatles were among those who made famous appearances. Following their debut, the Kims became regular guests on the show throughout the ’60s, finally clocking up no less than 22 appearances, joined in later years by their mother and their three brothers.
Apart from their TV appearances, they played Las Vegas nightclubs and toured nationwide, earning up to $13,000 a week, singing a mixture of Western pop, show songs and Korean tunes. To stand out in the competitive field of sister acts — apart from the Andrews, the Maguire Sisters were a big attraction at the time — they worked on their dancing and instrumental skills, learning to play the sax, drums and vibes as well as Korean instruments like gayageum and janggu.
Much of our knowledge of the sisters’ story comes from an oral history interview given by Sook-ja in 1996. Disappointingly, the interviewer did not ask anything about their recording career. Somewhat surprisingly for a Las Vegas club act, the sisters were signed to Monument Records, a Nashville-based label specializing in rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and country music.
The company’s founder and president, Fred Foster was, and remains, a revered figure in the music industry. He produced hit records like “Pretty Woman” for Roy Orbison, discovered Dolly Parton, and co-authored Kris Kristofferson’s signature song “Me and Bobby McGee.”
The Kims remained with Monument for three years, from 1964 to 1967, producing an LP and several singles. They were supported by Nashville’s top session musicians, and  were able to record material by some of the leading country music writers of the day, sharing their songs with the likes of Jim Reeves, Patsy Cline and the Everly Brothers, but perhaps their standout track was a lively cover version of the Coasters’ rock and roll hit “Yakety-yak,” which they can be seen singing live on YouTube.
The sisters stopped performing as an act in the 1970s. Ae-ja died of lung cancer in 1978, and Mi-ja eventually moved to Budapest with her percussionist husband Tommy Vig. Sook-ja became a real estate agent, but continued to perform occasionally into the new millennium.
The author is retired, and lives in Euiwang, Gyeonggi Province. He can be reached at mgduffy@outlook.com