Jimmy Little

For a long time Jimmy Little was the only aboriginal star in Australian music.

He was born in 1937 on the Cummeragunga settlement near Echuca, on the New South Wales side of the Murray River. His father Jimmy Little Sr. preceded him as an aboriginal entertainment legend, a singer who led his own vaudeville troupe up and down the Murray in the 30s and 40. Jimmy Little Sr’s repertoire consisted of hundreds of songs from every possible source – hymns he’d learned at the mission, hillbilly songs, show tunes, bush ballads and traditional tribal. The younger Jimmy Little just followed in his footsteps.

Jimmy first went to Sydney as a teenager, and at the age of 17 cut his first 78, ‘Mysteries Of Life’ in 1954. After five more releases for Regal Zonophone Jimmy released two singles for EMI’s Columbia label, the second being a song written by his father, ‘Give The Coloured Boy A Chance’, the first song of its type in Australian music. The original white Jimmy Little Trio made way for an aboriginal line-up. If he was a novelty, he wasn’t hiding his true heritage. Jimmy was also declaring the deep Christian beliefs which guided his life. In 1959 he also appeared in evangelist Bill Graham’s movie ‘Shadow Of The Boomerang.’

Making impressions with his versions of ‘Danny Boy’ and ‘El Paso’, and coming close to cracking the national charts with ‘Little By Little’, the breakthrough finally came in November 1963 with the feel-good religious ‘Royal Telephone’. The follow-up ‘One Road’ was written by 17 year old Barry Gibb. Barry originally wrote it as a love song but changed the lyrics to suit the religious mood of ‘Royal Telephone’. It wasn’t a big hit, but made Jimmy Little one of the first artists to record one of Barry’s songs.

Once his pop star faded Jimmy returned to what he knew best, the country fairs and side shows he’d been brought up in, continuing to release records and scoring another pop hit with ‘Baby Blue’ in 1974. At the end of the 70s he retired from music to concentrate on his family, and to work in education.

After winning the Aboriginal Of The Year award in 1989, Jimmy Little hit the comeback trail. He appeared in the Wim Wenders film ‘Until The End Of The World’, and played a non-singing role in the aboriginal opera ‘Black River’. In 1995 Jimmy released his first album in 15 years, ‘Yorta Yorta Man’.

Four years later Jimmy’s comeback achieved unimaginable heights when Brendan Gallagher of contemporary country-rock band Karma County approached Jimmy with the idea of recording an album of Australian rock legends by the likes of The Church, Reels, Cruel Sea and others, performed in the smooth Jimmy Little country style. The result ‘The Messenger’ was not just Jimmy’s first ever chart album, it resulted in an ARIA Award for Jimmy and a belated entry into the ARIA Hall Of Fame. He was inducted in the Tamworth equivalent in 1994.

A long-term diabetic, in December 2001 Jimmy Little had surgery enabling him to administer kidney dialysis at home. It also meant cutting back to more manageable levels the busy touring schedules which had been the hallmark of Jimmy's career to date. In February 2004, a kidney became available and Jimmy interrupted a West Australian tour to quickly return to Sydney for the transplant operation. He made his recording comeback with May's 'Life's What You Make It', a return to the 'Messenger' formula.