Jimmy's road to happinessA SONG written a century ago by an Englishman in the US that became an Irish anthem was the unlikely starting point for the singing career of the favourite son of the Yorta Yorta people.
Fifty years ago, Jimmy Little, then something of a curiosity as an Aboriginal pop singer, recorded Danny Boy for Festival Records -- he's still there. Not so long ago he beautifully reworked Under the Bridge by US alternative rockers Red Hot Chili Peppers, but then Jimmy's been hitting many and varied bases all his life.
By 2004 he had been given an Order of Australia and been declared a National Living Treasure, but we'd known that for many years.
Jimmy doesn't call in on us that often these days, especially since he became crook some years back and ended up having kidney trouble and being on dialysis, but he's taking the stage with Karma Country's gifted Brendan Gallagher at the Corner Hotel tomorrow night.
Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.
End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.
`"I grew up listening to Danny Boy,'' he said. He started playing it at shows, along with I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen, and was encouraged to record them. The Irish had also adhered themselves to Kathleen, but it, too, was American.
Were audiences surprised to hear an Aboriginal singer handling their -- albeit stolen -- musical crown jewels?
"I believe so,'' said Jimmy at the weekend. "As a singer, a presenter, I sang for the audience, whatever they liked. As a teenager I sang to all the mums and dads and grandparents, the songs of their era and people would say they wanted me to sing them again and again. Then I became this balladeer of Irish songs, Scottish songs, folk songs in general.''
His first big hit, a faith-inspired Burl Ives favourite, Royal Telephone, brought Jimmy nationwide fame in 1963. He had already recorded a couple of songs by a very young Brisbane writer who, with two brothers, had also been signed by Festival. Returning the favour Barry Gibb changed some words to a song he was finishing called One Road.
"It was a love song initially, but Barry changed a few words and made it about loving the lord -- one road to happiness,'' Jimmy said, of the follow-up that did so well.
"Great songs make great singers,'' he adds.
Brendan Gallagher chanced upon Jimmy one night at a club when the act booked for the venue was cancelled.
He was taken by the Nat King Cole-like tones of a man he had only ever heard about.
Within days, Jimmy was working with Gallagher on a collection of great modern Australian pop songs by the likes of Paul Kelly, the Reels, Cruel Sea, the Go-Betweens, Crowded House and the Church.
THE album became Messenger, an unlikely landmark in Australia's musical history, and it is to celebrate its 10th anniversary that Gallagher and Jimmy are playing tomorrow night.
Jimmy has received countless accolades and awards in his long life, but he is most grateful to have received a new kidney in a life-saving transplant five years back.
"The kidney is fine, all's working well,'' Jimmy cheerily reports, but the medication that keeps it functioning has brought on diabetes.
"It's usually the other way around, but I'm hanging on.''
Hanging on and helping out; his Jimmy Little Foundation (
www.jlf.org.au) will this month announce new programs to encourage healthy food and cooking -- and, of course, music -- among indigenous children in remote areas.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/jimmys-road-to-happiness/story-e6frfhqf-1225780161867
I Hate Dialysis Message Board
Author
