A real loss
Apr. 2nd, 2012 11:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blamebramptonThis post contains names and images of deceased people.
Jimmy Little died today.
Back around the turn of the millennium, I had an interview with him. He had a bunch of other media commitments on the same day, and a photo shoot with Kylie Minogue. His 'people' ushered me down a hallway towards a meeting room where we would hold our interview, along the way they stopped and knocked on a door. Jimmy Little opened the door, smiling.
'Sorry,' he said, 'I'm just running a bit late …'
'That's all right,' said the publicist. 'This is Brammers, your next interview.'
He looked at me, he grinned. He opened the door wider. Inside was Kylie Minogue. She looked up at him, then out at me. I looked at her, she looked at me. Both of us had faces that conveyed something along the lines of: 'Yay for teeny tiny chicks!' We both grinned, too.
Jimmy smiled at everyone and announced, 'I feel so tall!'
Most interviews are exercises in ego, but talking to Jimmy Little was like talking to your favourite senior relative. He talked about how much he loved his wife, and how important it was to have a partner you could like and respect. He said that it was pure good luck on his part that led to him being the first indigenous Australian to have a number one single, but that he had felt it a privilege and a gift that he was then able to work for various indigenous causes, including supporting Aboriginal health and indigenous musicians.
At the end of the interview, I didn't want to leave. He gave me a hug and told me to be good, and to work hard and have faith and everything works out if you do.
Jimmy Little was a quiet, gentle and generous man whose activism was made all the more powerful by the fact it was as soft and inexorable as a stream. In an age of pop stars who wave their political actions in front of the world and demand attention for them, a small man with a soft voice (that was big when he sang) and a guitar encouraging his people to make sure they take care of their health and supporting education and opportunity throughout communities around the country was never going to grab the headlines, but I bet he made just as much difference to the world as Bono ever could.
Most of you have probably never heard of him, which is a great shame. Here are a couple of his songs that I particularly love, they're both worth listening to. If you're into 1960s' music, check out his Twisting the Night Away, Baby Blue, or his big hit Royal Telephone.
This is his beautiful rendition of The Triffids' Bury Me Deep in Love, sung with Kylie.
And this is him singing Cattle and Cane, one of the best songs written by the Go-Betweens. Good bye, Jimmy. Thank you.
Jimmy Little died today.
Back around the turn of the millennium, I had an interview with him. He had a bunch of other media commitments on the same day, and a photo shoot with Kylie Minogue. His 'people' ushered me down a hallway towards a meeting room where we would hold our interview, along the way they stopped and knocked on a door. Jimmy Little opened the door, smiling.
'Sorry,' he said, 'I'm just running a bit late …'
'That's all right,' said the publicist. 'This is Brammers, your next interview.'
He looked at me, he grinned. He opened the door wider. Inside was Kylie Minogue. She looked up at him, then out at me. I looked at her, she looked at me. Both of us had faces that conveyed something along the lines of: 'Yay for teeny tiny chicks!' We both grinned, too.
Jimmy smiled at everyone and announced, 'I feel so tall!'
Most interviews are exercises in ego, but talking to Jimmy Little was like talking to your favourite senior relative. He talked about how much he loved his wife, and how important it was to have a partner you could like and respect. He said that it was pure good luck on his part that led to him being the first indigenous Australian to have a number one single, but that he had felt it a privilege and a gift that he was then able to work for various indigenous causes, including supporting Aboriginal health and indigenous musicians.
At the end of the interview, I didn't want to leave. He gave me a hug and told me to be good, and to work hard and have faith and everything works out if you do.
Jimmy Little was a quiet, gentle and generous man whose activism was made all the more powerful by the fact it was as soft and inexorable as a stream. In an age of pop stars who wave their political actions in front of the world and demand attention for them, a small man with a soft voice (that was big when he sang) and a guitar encouraging his people to make sure they take care of their health and supporting education and opportunity throughout communities around the country was never going to grab the headlines, but I bet he made just as much difference to the world as Bono ever could.
Most of you have probably never heard of him, which is a great shame. Here are a couple of his songs that I particularly love, they're both worth listening to. If you're into 1960s' music, check out his Twisting the Night Away, Baby Blue, or his big hit Royal Telephone.
This is his beautiful rendition of The Triffids' Bury Me Deep in Love, sung with Kylie.
And this is him singing Cattle and Cane, one of the best songs written by the Go-Betweens. Good bye, Jimmy. Thank you.
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no subject
Date: 2012-04-02 01:48 pm (UTC)-i-
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Date: 2012-04-02 03:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-02 09:37 pm (UTC)I nearly got interviewed by radio when I said somewhere that they evoked such - indescribably feelings of places that you think you can go to, but can't, because there the people yearn for Europe, but it's not that simple, wide open road is more than that, less prosaic than cattle and cane, we want surprises ...
See, and that sadness was even before I remembered that David and Grant are also gone; I manage to keep forgetting that, so it keeps hurting afresh. I'll now try to brave Kylie Minogue ... only for you :)
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Date: 2012-04-02 02:53 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2012-04-02 02:59 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2012-04-02 04:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-02 09:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-02 10:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-03 01:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-05 06:21 am (UTC)I loved how he quietly encouraged his people (the Yorta Yorta) and other indigenous people to live with dignity and not succumb to the usual traps of alcohol, bad health and general apathy.
Much love and respect.