Slowly does it, as Little Jimmy hits the big time again

Phil Johnson
Saturday 30 July 1994 23:02 BST
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BLESSED with the voice of Billie Holiday in the body of Jimmy Clitheroe, Little Jimmy Scott is the most affecting singer of slow, sentimental ballads there is. A doll-like figure, whose flailing arms act out the psychodrama of each song as if the shop-worn lyrics told the story of his life (and if they possess enough pain and loss, they do), Scott is just about the last of his line - the lachrymose- jazz-meets-R&B vocalists of the Forties and Fifties. Now aged 69, with three decades of bad luck and obscurity behind him, he's happily enjoying a late renaissance. He has an excellent new album (Dream, Sire), and this week he plays the Purcell Room in the South Bank's 'Now You See It . . .' season, an imaginative mixture of music, dance and performance linked by the promise that the artists involved will be taking risks rather than taking stock. (See Jazz, below, for details.)

(Photograph omitted)

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