When Ethan Kelso was 8 years old, his adoptive mother asked him where he had learned to sing. He told her, “‘In the darkness.’”
Kelso was 3 when his father was killed in a car accident, leaving him in the care of his mother, who struggled with addiction, his family said. Kelso and his older sister, Bailey, were eventually placed in foster care until they were adopted by their grandparents, Mary Claire and Gary Kelso.
“They sang alone in an apartment with no electricity,” said Mary Claire Kelso. “All they had was their voices. They came from such sadness.