"Little" Jimmy Scott - jazz singer - Interview

Interview, August, 1994 by Steven Garbarino

"Little" Jimmy Scott isn't so little anymore.

The legendary '50s torch singer with the fragile build, soft features, and supernatural feminine voice--the result of a hereditary condition called Kallman's Syndrome--is in the midst of a smoldering comeback. He's just released a new album of ballads and jazz standards entitled Dream (Sire/Warner Bros./Blue Horizon), the follow-up to his Grammy-nominated release All the Way (1992), and this month the sixty-nine-year-old singer is playing a series of shows at New York's Tavern on the Green. An evening with Jimmy Scott is more than a sentimental journey--it's a trip to the moon and beyond, a kind of out-of-body experience for both singer and audience.

STEVEN GARBARINO: You're basically doing what you've always done. So why were you suddenly rediscovered?

JIMMY SCOTT: Not long ago, you couldn't even find my records in stores. Some people thought I was dead. Today the climate is friendlier for singers like me and Tony Bennett--who I opened for last month--and Johnny Cash: troubadours who have been in the business for years and have the stamina and the growth to survive. I think young listeners are in awe of us because they've never sat down and really concentrated on the art of the music. They've been too wrapped up in the boom-boom and the bam-bam of a lot of today's music. Dig? And now their tastes are maturing, and they're looking for something else.

SG: How much of your popularity has to do with the unsettling physical aura you exude, however unintentionally?

JS: Not too much, I hope. But people do have an attitude of curiosity toward me. They say, "This guy looks funny, he looks too young, he looks like a woman, but I can't be sure."

SG: I've heard that you're the only performer who can make Madonna cry.

JS: One of the waiters at Tavern on the Green told me that--that she said I'm the only one.

SG: You've had a tough life. Broken promises and record contracts, four failed marriages. Until several years ago, you were working as a shipping clerk at a hotel in your hometown, Cleveland. How did you handle it?

JS: I knew early on that my life was my music. And that has always been my sustenance and desire. Now I'm trying to help other people with their music careers by producing them.

SG: If you were asked, would you play Lollapalooza next year?

JS: Sure I would! For kicks, babe, for kicks. Fortunately, I have experience in traveling in the rough. I learned early on how to collaborate with all kinds of people and music. It's a great enjoyment for me, and I'd love to work with Madonna.