Cindy Solonec review of Frances Peters-Little, Jimmy Little: A Yorta Yorta Man

(Sydney: Hardie Grant, 2023), 272 pp., HB $45.00, ISBN 9781743799062

‘Look there, Jimmy Little’, my Aunty Eddie whispered as she gently clutched my arm and pouted towards the famous singer. He had just walked into Retravision in Derby where we were shopping. We turned coy when he looked our way, grinned and waved cheerfully before disappearing further into the store. That is the effect the man with the velvety voice had on his Countrimin. Before he had recorded his signature song ‘Royal Telephone’ with Festival Records in 1963, Jimmy Little was well on his own way to glory. Right up until his seventy-fifth birthday he was still performing in clubs and hotels in regional communities across Australia.

Following her father’s death in 2012, Frances Peters-Little, his only child, honoured a request from her parents to write her father’s biography. While she was reluctant to comply, I am pleased that she did. Not only is this work meticulously investigated and executed, but also the author’s perspective is important. Non-Aboriginal writers do a fine job, but too often they write from a less nuanced viewpoint. Sadly, Frances herself passed away in May 2024, joining her beloved parents on the other side.

The Foreword is affectionately scripted by Jimmy Little’s niece, the celebrated Koori opera singer, Deborah Cheetham—a Stolen Generations child. In her Preface, Peters-Little admits that exploring her dad’s biography was a long and difficult journey. Divulging one’s family’s deep history is private yet often necessary when it comes to our national treasures. Peters-Little eloquently transcends such difficulties to do justice to her parents’ lived experience. Each chapter begins with lyrics from a Jimmy Little poem or song that are wholesome and meaningful, giving context to the chapter. From interviews with her father, Peters-Little skilfully enhances his biography by interspersing his voice verbatim and differentiating his words in Arial font. Photographs help to bring the story to life.

The author probes deep into colonial history to complement the way in which her father portrays how his ancestors survived genocidal brutality. Little’s earliest years were spent on Cummeragunja Mission on his mother’s Yorta Yorta Country in Victoria, where Aboriginal people were being indoctrinated by the Church of Christ. He was but a babe in arms when his parents joined the 1939 walk-off from Cummeragunja, protesting the overseer’s cruel management style—cutting residents’ pay and feeding them rancid meat and fouled milk. Little’s two siblings died there. The family moved away to live as fringe dwellers in their own Country. Most of his childhood was on his father’s Yuin Country in New South Wales where he grew up not knowing about his maternal ancestry. It was not until Jimmy Little was in his 60s that he began delving into the archives to learn more about his Yorta Yorta culture. He lost his mum when he was just 13.

At the age of 16 Jimmy Little moved to Sydney to further his singing opportunities. He met the love of his life, Marjorie Rose Peters, at the Waterloo Town Hall and he was clearly smitten with the strong-willed Yuwaalaraay/Gamilaraay woman. Their marriage would become known as one of the most respected unions in the Australian music industry. Little was smitten again when his daughter Frances arrived in 1958, and he penned ‘Frances Claire’, one of the many songs I listened to while writing this review.

Both Jimmy’s and Marj’s families before them were entertainers—singers, dancers, spooners, finger clickers and snappers, magicians, boxers and even a fire eater in circuses, popular in vaudeville shows. Jimmy’s desire to perform publicly was shaped when he was a lad, listening to country and hillbilly tracks on early morning radio with his dad. The 1950s were known as the golden years of radio, when 40 per cent of Australians preferred radio over reading (27 per cent). A host of American and Australian artists influenced Little and his successful life of music—Eddie Fisher, Al Martino, Bing Crosby and Perry Como; and locally, Buddy Williams, Tex Morton (New Zealand), Smokey Dawson, Rick and Thel Carey, and even Slim Dusty. Little performed solo at Aboriginal dances at Redfern and La Perouse and even on the Kalang, a large showboat that cruised Sydney Harbour.

Little linked Aboriginal spiritual beliefs to Christianity in ‘Royal Telephone’; however, as southern Pentecostals considered a royal telephone as a way of communicating with God, some people accused him of turning his back on his Aboriginal culture in favour of Christian beliefs. Jimmy insisted that he was not influenced by any affiliation, because he grew up in the faith of his own Aboriginal teachings, from his tribal ways, which he combined with Christian teachings. Little wrote ‘Yorta, Yorta Man’ as his biographical song.

During the 1960s, he found himself involved in advocacy for the rights of Aboriginal peoples. Societal change brought on by popular culture drew him in to become a public servant in education and an activist for the rights of our peoples. He was a worthy advocate, albeit inadvertently. During the lead up to the 1967 Referendum, Little became aligned with Aboriginal activists like Charles Perkins, Gordon Briscoe and Faith Bandler. He did not necessarily enjoy these times, yet he felt it was necessary. Rather than political, he asserted that he was artistic and that entertaining was his platform. Little knew that, for him, sharing music and meeting people with a ‘gently-gently’ approach was the best way to break down racial barriers. He did not accept that others needed to be lectured to about the troubles of Aboriginal people.

Jimmy Little recorded numerous songs and he won awards that included NAIDOC’s Person of the Year in 1989. Other accolades included induction into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 1999, appointment as AO in 2004 and the Tamworth Country Music Festival Golden Guitar Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011. Jimmy Little, A Yorta Yorta Man is a captivatingly superb journey that reveals many aspects of the singer’s life. The book concludes with a discography. Frances Peters-Little honours her parents’ wish with pride and dignity.