


Bloodlines: The Little Family

Sunday 26 September 2010, 1:30pm ABC1


Most people will know the name Jimmy Little, Australia's first Aboriginal recording star with his worldwide, 60's hit song "Royal Telephone". But did you know that he has an over achieving historian, writer, filmmaker daughter, Frances or a grandson, James Henry who has inherited a full complement of musical genes? Nothing demonstrates the power of bloodline more than the extraordinary story of Jimmy's stolen generation niece.

MIRIAM COROWA: Hello. I'm Miriam Corowa. Welcome to Message Stick and our Bloodlines series on Indigenous families. Most people know the name Jimmy Little, Australia's first Aboriginal recording star with his '60s hit song Royal Telephone. But did you know that he has an overachieving historian/writer/filmmaker daughter or a Stolen Generation niece who became an opera singer, only to discover decades later that her uncle was none other than Jimmy Little? I hope you enjoy Bloodlines: The Little Family.

JIMMY LITTLE: I wanted to be like my dad. As a kid, I'd put his boots on, his hat, look in the mirror. He was my hero. And then, the next man in my life is the boy... I call him the boy because, uh, I guess because of my seniority. But he's a young man. Uh, handsome, intelligent and the bloodline and the genes reminds me, when I look at him from time to time, that was me 30 years ago.

JIMMY LITTLE SINGS: # I'll always ramble

# Back along a winding track

# To the old rugged hills

# Of home. #

FRANCES PETERS-LITTLE: We go back now to Eddie Little, my dad's grandfather. Now, his story is that he was born and found somewhere near a massacre site in Queensland. And he was found as a baby. And he was raised by a white family and they gave him the name Little. And then he came down to New South Wales and settled in the Southern Highlands area. And he met with Eliza Penrith and they married in 1902. And they had three sons and two daughters. And one of their sons was named James Edward Little, who we know now as Kunkas. And then he married Frances McGee at Cumeragunja. And their first child was James Oswald Little, which is Jimmy Little.

JIMMY LITTLE: I remember, fondly, Mum and Dad performing on stage. with other artists from the Cumeragunja Music Group, playing instruments, like mandolin, banjo, guitars of course, harmonicas. I thought - "Gee, that's nice." Music had an attraction for me. As much as playing sport and just running loose around the bush... and hunting and all of that... One, two, three, four.


# On the banks

# Of the Murray... #

FRANCES PETERS-LITTLE: You know, when other people would watch TV, quite often, we just had singalongs. (LAUGHS) Um, you know, like, everyone had a go. I mean, it was just normal. You know, you come home, the guitar's in the lounge room, you pick it up and you start playing and someone sits down next to you and starts singing away, you know? And that's all you do, you know? I mean, it was just a really daggy, uncool thing but that's our family, you know? Music was just a really crucial part of what we did daily.

JAMES HENRY LITTLE: I was raised by my grandparents. And my mother was raised by, you know, the same parents. So we both call Jimmy and Marge, Mum and Dad. And I call my mother Fran. And being raised by the same parents, I guess it makes us a little bit more like siblings.

JAMES HENRY LITTLE SINGS: # Don't you do it to me this way

# Tangled up in what could have been

# Muddled up with... #

My earliest memory of performing would have been when my grandfather taught me how to play You Are My Sunshine. And then I would play that sometimes up on stage with him when I was quite young.

# All this time there was something wrong

# I never thought about the world

# Without you in it

# Thought about the world... #

When my grandfather would be playing in the band with my uncles and they would have jam sessions together. And seeing that musician camaraderie kind of made me also want a bit of that in my life once I got older.

DEBORAH CHEETHAM: The thing that binds us together as family is music. I have a voice that I've inherited from my mother Monica who's Jimmy's younger sister. And Monica has a voice that she inherited from her mother, and from generations before that. This voice that I sing with, yes, it's been trained classically. And maybe I don't sing quite so many country and western songs as I would have done if I'd grown up with Monica but it is a connection that goes deeper than just the day-to-day experience.

JIMMY LITTLE: I'm at the gate, the borderline, of the mission. which was my whole life up to that point in time. I was educated at that point, family-wise, traditional-wise, custom-wise and Aboriginal-wise. I was happy in my world. And I could have remained there but I was curious, interested, and ready to go out into the next world to find out what it's about. So my one step out of the mission was the next step into the university of life.

# I was born on the banks of the Murray... #

FRANCES PETERS-LITTLE: He was a young man in his teens, he jumped on the back of a truck, he arrived in Sydney, he found his way around Sydney, found the jobs, found the music scene, found the fans and found a career and a family and he's been there ever since. You don't do that by being a novelty. You don't do that by being... pretending to be a white man when you've got black skin.

JIMMY LITTLE SINGS: # Telephone to glory

# Oh, what joy divine

# I can feel the current moving on the line... #

I didn't look like I'd just got out of bed or didn't look like I just came from the factory. I was there, you know, all slick 'cause at school, again, when I saw all those movies and all those magazines, I dressed like them. So I was always, from my early days on the mission, learning how to sell the product. And then the product, the market, got bigger and bigger, so I got bigger and bigger. Tonight, I'm not appearing as Jimmy Little the singer, but as Jimmy Little, a member of a very proud race, my people, the Aborigines, the first Australians.

FRANCES PETERS-LITTLE: There's always been this mystery, I think, of people trying to figure out, why did Jimmy Little succeed in the '60s and so many other Aboriginal people didn't? And a lot of people thought that he fitted in with that whole assimilation period. And he became the poster child, basically, of assimilation policies of the '60s and '50s.

LARISSA BEHRENDT: I think it's a mistake to think that the people who succeeded in the mainstream were comfortably assimilated. And in many ways, their success in the mainstream meant that they were often treated as though they were exceptions. They weren't immune to the racism of the era because no blackfella was.

JIMMY LITTLE SINGS: # One little kiss and a lot of lovin'

# You build a big mansion of love... #

I wasn't trying to be white. I was another colour altogether. I was black but I was also white. And I told people that. I said, "Now, we're going to the school and we've got the white chalk and we've got the blackboard. You pick up the newspaper and you look at it and there's white paper, black writing." I said, "Black and white go together.... harmoniously." So I told them I wasn't here to talk about politics. I wasn't here to sing about racism. I wasn't here... I just melted their hearts by singing a love song and, oh! So I just kept on doing that. Well, if I can melt them like chocolate in a fire and leave a sweet taste and go, then they'll remember Jimmy was a chocolate soldier. (LAUGHS)

# My heart still longs to walk about

# Where my feet can never go... #

The art world has given me the vehicle to provide for my wife and our family. And our family exists of a beautiful daughter... I wanted to have seven children - three daughters and four boys. And then I tell my daughter... While she's the only girl, I tell her, I really do, that she's three girls in one, in her busy career and her life.

FRANCES PETERS-LITTLE SINGS: # 'Tis the ancestor's words

# When the fire's voice is heard

# 'Tis the ancestor's words

# In the voice of the water...#

LARISSA BEHRENDT: I'm always really inspired every time I see them perform, especially Frances because I come to know her with her academic hat on and it's not like I forget that she has these other talents but then I see them and I'm just reminded.

JIMMY LITTLE SINGS: # And it's something quite peculiar

# Something shimmering and white

# It leads you here

# Despite your destination... #

FRANCES PETERS-LITTLE: I think the funny thing is, I think there's been sort of like a generational kind of jump in terms of the music that we write. Dad, you know, he sang a lot of, you know, love songs and ballads and evergreens and those sorts of things. I did your kind of 'folky' protest stuff. But James is more back to a lot of those beautiful melodies and he has his own style of music. But he's not doing the protest stuff that I did.

# Farewell to old England forever

# Your pox and your strychnine and flu

# You brought it out here to Australia

# And that was the best you could do

# Bringing your too-rall, li-oo-rall, li-ad-di-ty... #

The old protest song writing goes back a bit. My grandfather, Kunkas Little, wrote lots of protest songs about Aboriginal people and their rights to land and their rights to work.

# Bound for Botany Bay... #

DEBORAH CHEETHAM: Well, it was three years ago I first discovered the story of the walk-off from Cumeragunja Mission. And I decided I wanted to create an opera around that story. And so writing an opera and writing a libretto around that story of the Cumeragunja walk-off, and then discovering that my own grandparents were part of that walk-off and that they took Jimmy as a young baby and walked across that river into Victoria in protest of how they were being treated To be writing an opera about that... (LAUGHS) be in the process of writing it and then to discover that my own grandparents were part of it, I mean, it's been a huge journey for me.

JAMES HENRY LITTLE: Right across the board, there are so many musical people in the family. Aunty Monica's daughter, Deborah Cheetham, is a fantastic opera singer, who I never really got a chance to know growing up. I think she was taken away at an early age.

JIMMY LITTLE: I know about Deborah being part of the family... but I didn't know the story behind her adoption.

DEBORAH CHEETHAM: I am a member of the Stolen Generation. I was taken from my mother when I was three weeks old. I was given to a family in Sydney. I'd be told, when I was very young, that I'd been abandoned by my mother, that she'd put me in a cardboard box and left me in a field. So as far as I knew, I'd been abandoned. Of course, this wasn't the case but I didn't learn that until much later in life.

JIMMY LITTLE: I was looking forward to eventually meeting her with her mum, my sister. And when that happened, there was a... there was a sadness and a gladness... to at least relate, family-wise, both ways.

DEBORAH CHEETHAM: I knew about the existence of Uncle Jimmy. In fact, I think when I was seven years old, I met him. My adoptive parents took me... I can remember quite distinctly, they took me to a shopping centre where he was making an appearance and I actually got to meet him.

JIMMY LITTLE: And I was delighted. She was too. We didn't have a lot of time to talk, a cup of tea and a laugh, and, "See you later, good to see you," that kind of thing.

DEBORAH CHEETHAM: As a really young child growing up in the '70s in Australia, someone being introduced to you as uncle, well, that's not unusual, it doesn't mean that you're related, it just is a term of respect. And so when I was introduced to him and told, "This is your Uncle Jimmy," it didn't compute in my mind that we were actually related.

JIMMY LITTLE: I was a stranger and she was a stranger, yet here we were, connected by the one family member - her mum and my sister.

DEBORAH CHEETHAM: I was brought up by a loving family. They took good care of me. I had a good education. But something was always missing. And it's only really been in the last decade of my life, in my 30s, that I've been able to reconnect with my family and to reconnect with Jimmy and my cousin Frances and James Henry and the whole extended family.

FRANCES PETERS-LITTLE: So this one here, is that at Smoky Dawson's ranch?



JIMMY LITTLE: That's Smoky Dawson's, yeah. So now my daughter is gathering the leaves of information on the family tree. That is surprising me and pleasing me to no end, to kind of, in a way, catch up with relatives... that I didn't grow up with.

JAMES HENRY LITTLE: My mother Frances is basically, with whatever she puts her heart and soul into, is a strong black woman.

FRANCES PETERS-LITTLE SINGS: # Now you may think I'm cheeky

# But I'd be satisfied

# To rebuild your convict ships

# Sail you on the tide... #

It was actually from working and doing all that music that I got involved with community radio and I started working at Radio Redfern, broadcasting there. So I was still around politics, I was still around music, I was in the community and everything and from there, then it led on to my having an interest in media.

JAMES HENRY LITTLE: Then she was working at Blackout for a good while. From her being a musician to a filmmaker to, I guess now, as an academic, to be out there telling our Aboriginal history from an Aboriginal point of view.

FRANCES PETERS-LITTLE: What you really hope to do with all those things is reach the heart. You know, you wanna reach the heart of people and to have them feel something and learn something. But mostly, more than learning something, to feel something that they hadn't felt before. A historian, Anna Clark, has come out and said recently that she was really surprised, she was shocked, at the vehemency of how many students were disinterested in Australian history, and in particular, Indigenous history.

LARISSA BEHRENDT: She asks exactly the right questions, you know, and really puts everybody on the spot. Frances came through academia at a time when there were very few Aboriginal people working as academics. And more than that, you know, Frances was really about confronting both the practice and the dominant way that history was spoken about.

FRANCES PETERS-LITTLE: You know, I'm not a particularly popular person. But, look, you know, my dad can be popular, I don't have to be popular. My son can be popular.

GRAHAM BIDSTRUPP: I produced a record for James three years ago now. So, you know, I've spent quite a lot of time with James. And I think James has definitely got the laid-back, take-it-easy, don't-get-hassled thing. He's got that from Jimmy for sure. He's a great songwriter, really good songwriter. And he could do some really cool stuff.

FRANCES PETERS-LITTLE: I just think that we're just all driven by this same little bug of creativity that needs to be doing a lot of different things. James, yeah, he works in radio and music, you know, is his love. And he does his photography as well. He's a great photographer.

JAMES HENRY LITTLE: Uncle Jack. Uncle Jack. Sorry. Is that as loud as you reckon you'll go or...?

MAN: Oh, I'll go louder, you know? You gotta belt 'em out, hey?

JAMES HENRY LITTLE: Alright. No, it's sounding good. Do you wanna just play a little bit... What I love about promoting other Aboriginal artists is, I guess, the fact that I grew up listening to Aboriginal music at a lot of these events that Jimmy would perform at. I developed a love for Aboriginal music. Just hearing it on Aboriginal radio, all these songs. It's something that I share with these musicians, you know, not only being Aboriginal, but also the love of music. So it's great to contribute to that.

DEBORAH CHEETHAM: (SIGHS) I can't wait for you to hear the children's choir sing that. They're quite amazing. Beautiful voices. I always knew that I got my musical talent from your side of the family.

JIMMY LITTLE: Yeah. And from the home base, the roots of where you get it, you plant new seeds in the present so the garden keeps growing.


JIMMY LITTLE: Generation to generation. So it's a continual journey. Steady, slow and sure. I'm proud of what you're doing, bub.


JIMMY LITTLE: I really am.

JIMMY LITTLE SINGS: # Telephone to glory

# Oh, what joy divine


JAMES HENRY LITTLE SINGS: # 'Tis a royal service

# Built for one and all

# When you get in trouble

# Give this royal line a call

JIMMY LITTLE: Let's do it together.

BOTH SING: # Telephone of glory

# Oh, what joy divine... #

FRANCES PETERS-LITTLE: We've all been bitten by the same bug, you know? I don't know, blame it on Eddie Little. I'm proud of what Dad does and I'm very proud of what James does. And I know they're proud of me too, you know?

JIMMY LITTLE SINGS: # You may talk to Jesus

# On this royal telephone... #

DEBORAH CHEETHAM: I've been very fortunate in that I did have that one little piece of information from when I was a child, that, "Your uncle is Jimmy Little." And suddenly, you know, the penny dropped. "My God! My uncle is Jimmy Little!" And that's a very handy piece of information to have because just about everybody in the Aboriginal community knows how they're related to Jimmy Little. (LAUGHS) So I've been able to connect with extended family quite easily. Many other Stolen Generation children don't have quite such an easy road as I have had.

FRANCES PETERS-LITTLE SINGS: # There will be no waiting

# On this royal line

# The telephone to glory

# Always answers just in time... #

JIMMY LITTLE: One more chorus!

So there we have it, the Little story continues and hopefully, beyond our anticipation, we will see other Littles in the sometime distant future.

# On this royal line... #

JAMES HENRY LITTLE: I probably won't call my son James. (LAUGHS) There's enough. I'm the third one. So there's, uh, yeah, my grandfather Jimmy, he's Jimmy Little Jr. I'm little Jimmy Little Jr. So that's enough for now.

ALL SING: # Made by God the father

# For his very own

# You may talk to Jesus

# On this royal telephone. #

# La! #

JIMMY LITTLE: Yeah! Good to hear that now and again.

MIRIAM COROWA: Well, I hope you've enjoyed part two of our Bloodlines series, which was produced by Grant Leigh Saunders. Make sure you tune in next week to find out about the Torres Family from Broome in WA. And if you'd like to watch this program again or leave a comment, then go to and click on the "Have Your Say" tag. See you next week.

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