James Oswald (Jimmy) Little was a keen and committed Christian and Yorta Yorta man. He was born in 1937 on the Cummeragunga settlement (called a “mission”, although technically it wasn’t one) near Echuca, on the New South Wales side of the Murray River.
His dad, 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 40s. Jimmy 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 songs. Young Jimmy just followed in Dad’s footsteps while declaring his deep Christian faith and doctrine, which guided his life.
Gentle, patient, and charming, on top of his professional career, he spent many hours visiting and performing privately for people in aged care facilities and hospitals.
He began his 69-year professional career in 1951 as a singer-songwriter and guitarist. For many years he was the main Aboriginal star on the Australian music scene. Little was happy to credit his influences as Nat King Cole, Johnny Mathis and American country music artist Jim Reeves.
His 1963 gospel song “Royal Telephone” sold over 75,000 copies (amazing for those days), and his most popular album, “Messenger”, peaked at No. 26 on the ARIA Albums Chart in ‘99. At the ARIA Music Awards in 1999, he was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame and won an ARIA Award for Best Adult Contemporary Album.
On Australia Day 2004, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia with the citation. This was “For service to the entertainment industry as a singer, recording artist and songwriter, and to the community through reconciliation and as an ambassador for Indigenous culture”.
As an actor, he appeared in Billy Graham’s 1960 film “Shadow of the Boomerang”. Source: http://www.howlspace.com.au/en/littlejimmy/littlejimmy.htm
And in 1991, he was in the movie “Until the End of the World”.
He also appeared in the play “Black Cockatoos”, and the opera “Black River”. As a teacher, he worked from 1985 at the Eora Centre in Redfern Sydney (where I used to be a Chaplain) and was a guest lecturer from 2000 at the University of Sydney‘s Koori Centre.
Jimmy was a diabetic and had a heart condition, and in 2004, he received a kidney transplant. Following this, he established the “Jimmy Little Foundation”, to promote indigenous health and diet. Website: http://www.jlf.org.au/
He said that his deep Christian beliefs guided his life, and he scored his biggest hit with the Christian song “Royal Telephone”. It peaked at number one in Sydney and number three in Melbourne.
Jimmy Little singing Royal Telephone
YouTube – video one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ-QsMYqzoY
It is delightfully endearing that Jimmy’s lyric is so obviously shaped by the Bible’s teaching about prayer. You can hear his joy, exultation and relief, being able to talk to the LORD with such intimacy, immediacy, and assurance. “Royal Telephone” contains words and thoughts from many Bible verses and passages about prayer:
Paul the apostle’s letter to the Philippians chapter 4 vs 6:
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”
Also:
“Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”
The apostle James’s letter, chapter 5:16 “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”
Royal Telephone’s lyrics:
“Telephone to glory, oh, what joy divine
I can feel the current moving on the line
Made by God the Father for His very own
You may talk to Jesus on this royal telephone
Central’s never busy, always on the line
You can hear from heaven almost any time
‘Tis a royal service, built for one and all
When you get in trouble, give this royal line a call
Telephone to glory, oh, what joy divine
There will be no charges, telephone is free
It is built for service, just for you and me
There will be no waiting on this royal line
Telephone to glory always answers just in time”
It also scoops up Paul the apostle’s letter to the Colossians chapter 4:2 “Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.” And,
His first letter to the Thessalonians chapter 5:26-18
“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
Another of Little’s lyrical topics, as well as prayer, was the love of God. The song Surely God was a Lover, with a style at times reminiscent of the more saucy parts of Song of Songs, is a strange and fascinating Christian song.
It is at times a bizarre targuming of the orthodox Scriptural doctrine of God’s love, and a conventional secular love song with an almost sexual flavour.
At several points, it even employs the moniker “she” of God, reminiscent of the dreadfully written (not to mention heretical) novel “The Shack”. At one point, Jimmy even suggests that God might have been left by a female lover:
“Surely God was a lover
When He bade the day begin
Soft as a woman’s eyelid
Fine as a woman’s skin
Surely God was a lover
All burning with desire
When He called the night to come down
And set the day on fire
Surely God is a lover.
Surely God was a lover.
When He made the driving rain
A woman must have left Him
Weeping in a waste of shame
Surely God was a lover
With the madness love will bring
He wrought while His love was singing
And put her soul in the spring
Surely God was a lover
When He made the trees so fair
In every leaf a glory
Caught from a woman’s hair
Surely God was a lover
You can see it in the flowers He grows
His love’s eyes in the violet
Her sweetness in the rose
Surely God was a lover”
In contrast, the closest the Scriptures come to describing God’s love anthropomorphically and romantically is in Song of Songs and other verses like the book of Zephaniah the prophet 3:17
“The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.”
And the prophet Jeremiah 31:3
“I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.”
More typical in the Bible are passages describing God’s love as demonstrative and generous, gracious and effective. Like John the apostle’s first letter 3:1,
“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are….
“being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved
1 John 4:10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins…
1 John 4:16 And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. In this, love is made complete with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment…
1 john 4:18 There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears is not complete in love…. We love because he first loved us…
John 15:13 – Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”
Also, Paul’s letter to the Romans 5:8, and 8:37-39:
“But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us…
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord”
In a gorgeous album of stunning covers, Jimmy recorded Neil Finn’s “Into Temptation”, an intriguing choice. Neil said of the song in 1988: “But you see, I’m from a fairly conservative middle class, Catholic background, so for me I can’t separate sex from the guilt and faithfulness and all that, and I think that’s very much part of it. So it’s written not about myself but about a state of mind that I’m familiar with.”:
“You opened up your door
I couldn’t believe my luck
You in your new blue dress
Taking away my breath
The cradle is soft and warm
Couldn’t do me no harm
You’re showing me how to give Into (sic) temptation
A muddle of nervous words
Could never amount to betrayal
The sentence is all my own
The price is to watch it fail
As I turn to go
You looked at me for half a second
With an open invitation for me to go into temptation
Knowing full well the earth will rebel
Into temptation
Safe in the wide open arms of hell
We can go sailing in
Climb down, lose yourself when you linger long into temptation
Right where you belong
The guilty get no sleep
In the last slow hours of morning
Experience is cheap
I should’ve listened to the warning
No way to break the spell
Don’t tell.”
Why does Little choose this song, of all the songs he could have chosen to cover? We can’t know. Maybe he’s friends with Neil Finn? Or did Finn approach him? Maybe he just liked the song, regardless of the words.
Or maybe he resounds with it personally, as a man, a fallen human, and one who, as (a married man) but also a pop star, would have received multiple invitations from women? Or maybe all of the above? God knows, but I suspect it may be the last option.
In 2012, at 72, Jimmy died in his home in Dubbo NSW. As Missionary Chaplain to the Entertainment Industry, I had the privilege of offering help to his family with Jimmy’s funeral.
(See later articles on Influential Australian aboriginal Christians)
Prayers:
Our gracious God and loving Heavenly Father,
Praise You for Jimmy Little’s life: committed to You although fallen, a Bible lover although even though it took faith, and a public advocate of Yours, even though it took courage.
Thank You in Jesus’ supreme name,
Amen.
Father of Creation and all creativity,
Please help us be creative for the sake of Your priceless name.
Make us creative in everything EXCEPT the Truth.
In Jesus’ powerful, forgiving, generous name, Amen
Dear Father,
Thank You for the way Jimmy was raised. With the truth of the gospel- You ARE truth.
You only ever speak truth.
You love truth, and hate lies.
Because You are truthful, You will always remain truthful,
For Your Name’s sake, Amen.
Image: Jimmy Little. Photo courtesy of the artist. NFSA title no: 358986