Friends of Buck's Rock News

FRIENDS OF BUCK’S ROCK NEWS Volume 4, Number 1 This Edition Explores “The Creative Process” Summer 2006 The Triumph of Jimmy Scott BY JEFFREY PAUL BOBRICK In the early 1950s, a reporter asked Billie Holiday what pushed her out of the way. In doing so, her arm became caught in the big handle of the car singers she liked. “Little Jimmy Scott,” she said and door and she was dragged along by the speeding vehicle. She bled to death. moved on. Fifty years later, the world is getting wise to Jimmy’s father was unwilling, or perhaps unable, to keep the family together after this trag- the words of Lady Day. Jimmy Scott, if you don’t know edy and Jimmy spent his adolescence split up from his family in orphanages and foster homes. him yet, is perhaps the greatest singer you’ve never The death of his beloved mother and the splintering of his family would shatter any- heard of. Get wise now. one’s world but Jimmy Scott made his tragedy and trauma into something that inspired him rather than destroyed him. He made it part of his song. Jimmy is well known for his OPENING ACT unusual voice and phrasing, but there is one other quality that stands out: when he sings, It’s a cold Autumn night in November and 80-year old people cry. Women cry. Men cry. It is not an uncommon sight to be at a Jimmy Scott per- jazz legend Jimmy Scott is the opening act for 22-year- formance and to see grown men weep as Jimmy sings his songs. Such is the power and old rising jazz star Peter Cincotti at Jazz at Lincoln depth of his delivery and his connection to the stories his songs portray. Center. While many in the audience are there to see the “The lyrics of songs are so important,” Jimmy explains. “I’m looking for ’What are young Mr. Cincotti, a large number have come out to they saying? Does it have a meaning? Does it have a reason? Does it have a story?’ hear the aging but angelic artist Jimmy Scott work his That’s important to me when I select music.” magic once again. One of Jimmy’s signature songs is the spiritual “Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless I’m seated next to a friendly suburban couple who Child.” Hearing Jimmy sing this song is an almost shocking experience. Nothing can pre- have never heard of Jimmy. pare you for it. Jimmy sings it as if he were the last man on earth, the last survivor. From “Who is he?” the wife asks me as they lights go down. out of his small body comes a voice that seems to bypass the listener’s defenses and take “Well,” I respond, “have you ever heard of Billie Holiday?” up residence in the soul. “Of course!” she says. “This world out here is lonely and cold,” Jimmy cries out. Jimmy is not singing about “He’s as great as she was,” I tell her matter-of-factly as she looks at me in disbelief. something as much as he is sharing an experience with the audience, as if it is his life that “Just not as famous.” As the lights dim, I have faith that Jimmy will back me up. it the source of the song. This is not just true with a song so achingly autobiographical; it Jimmy comes onstage slowly, walking with a limp across the edge on the stage. is true with every song. He is the song he sings. I realize that with every word, Jimmy creates Watching him make his way to the microphone, some may wonder if this little man a world. And more often than not, that world is sorrowful, beautiful and made of love and loss. still has the power to perform. But any doubts soon evaporate as he swings into gear and begins to sing. Jimmy has a great joy in entertaining people and clearly gets a SHOW FOLK kick out of his interplay with his extraordinary backing group, the Jazz Expressions, After living through Jimmy’s remarkable performance, I wait backstage to meet the mas- who bop and wail like nobody’s business. Jimmy even performs a surprising little jig ter. Lou Reed, who took Jimmy on tour with him as a backup singer in the 1990s, is there during the instrumental break of “Pennies From Heaven” and smiles as if he’s never to see Jimmy, as are other New York celebrities. Harvey Keitel and Jimmy’s longtime known sorrow. But when the tempo drops and he sings the slow sad songs, it’s clear friend Joe Pesci both pop in to say their hellos. When I am brought in to interview Jimmy he has experienced the most incredible heartbreak imaginable…or is the greatest I find a man as giving and warm as I could ever hope to meet. Yet there is a great sadness storyteller who ever sang — or perhaps both. to him. The question I most want to ask him is if he thinks the sadness in his life has “You were right,” whispers the wife next to me. “He is one of the greatest singers I made him the artist he is. have ever heard.” I simply nod my head. “Yes, there has been anger and hopes in life,” Jimmy says almost wistfully. “Always Although it could be frustrating for Jimmy, a veteran performer whose career you want things to get better. You never want things to fall apart. And then when it began in the late 1940s, to be opening for a singer with one album to his name whose does, you moan within yourself. That moaning comes out in your song.” Jimmy pauses career started in the 2000s, Jimmy seems happy to be there, singing for us. Given a moment when he says that, going somewhere deep inside himself. Then, like a light his legendary and influential status in the business, Jimmy’s pleasure in being a bulb turning on, he looks up and laughs. “It just happens to be like that.” young performer’s opening act may seem surprising. But there was a time, not so It is this laughter, this hope and this acceptance that has sustained him through long ago, when it looked like we would never hear from Jimmy Scott again. his darker days when it has looked as though all was lost. Somewhere in the sadness is a joy just as deep and just as true. It sparkles often in his personality offstage and it ONCE UPON A TIME… speaks to us in his performances. Jimmy comes across as an optimist, if for no other Jimmy Scott’s life story reads like a “and then something even worse happened” tale a little reason that to be otherwise would be to have given up long ago. kid would tell for shock value. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, on July 17, 1925, he was one of 10 Jimmy enjoys the backstage life, relaxing with his new wife, Jeanie Scott, his fifth, children born to Justine Stanard and Arthur Scott. As a child, Jimmy was drawn to power- and holding court like the old jazz cat that he is. Smoking and laughing, surrounded by ful and dramatic singers of the era, like Paul Robeson, Bessie Smith and Judy Garland. friends, fans and band members, Jimmy knows how far he has come from the time in the He also was moved by the music his mother loved, the music of the church. Young Jimmy 1970s when he had become so removed from the industry that Jet Magazine published his learned that he had a unique gift and approach to music while singing gospel songs with his obituary. His band members remain with us during the interview, fascinated by his stories, family. He always sang his lines later than everybody else, with a way of phrasing each line his wisdom and his genius. that seemed to lag behind the beat. “Everybody has their own experience and their own time to understand,” he tells “My sister’s brother used to get mad,” he recalls. “ ‘Oh, he can’t keep up Ma.’ me. “As a song is understood by you, the next person too begins to understand. It They’d tell her ‘He ain’t keepin’ up.’ ” Justine, rather than seeing Jimmy’s sense of comes about to him or her. If they’re listeners.” time as flawed, realized the way he heard music was a strength. Although Jimmy may not have had millions of listeners in his career, those who lis- “My mother realized what it was and then she would make me solo a lot,” Jimmy remem- tened really understood, especially other singers. He began his career as a featured singer bers. “And every time, just like I’ve been singing all my life, I’m still singing the same way.” in Estella “Caldonia” Young’s revue in the 1940s and toured the country, influencing The love of a mother is very important for a little boy and was especially important singers such as rhythm and blues pioneer Ruth Brown. Jimmy attributes a lot of his early to Jimmy. She appreciated him, encouraged him and helped give him a belief in himself show business education to Caldonia, who not only brought him up as a performer but and his talent that would transcend any circumstance life might have waiting for him. was a surrogate mother to him. Jimmy eventually joined the Lionel Hampton Orchestra, When Jimmy was 13 years old, he learned that he had Kallmann’s syndrome, a where he sang on the #6 pop hit “Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool” in 1950.

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