Jimmy Scott can touch you in your deepest parts
and even find spots that you never know you had.

He sings the slow notes slower than anyone else
and he has a way of bending notes that is uncanny.
It's like he is trying to find out how much he can control
and try a note without messing up his perfect pitch.
He sings behind the beat further than anyone else ever could
and every time I'm certain that I'm certain
he finally gets too far back, he returns somehow.
His meter is always impeccable.
He has a wide vibrato and the combination of his timing, pitch,
and soft sweet sound gives every song a dream-like, love fantasy quality.
No one ever sings or sounds like him.

    Doc Pomus

There would be no Nancy Wilson, were it not for Little Jimmy Scott.
I owe all that I am and all that I have to this man's singing style.
When I hear Jimmy, he touches me with his unique ability for phrasing.
The emotions riding on the timbre of his voice.
With that all-important ability to tell a story
and you get it the first time you hear it.
What a gift !

The connotation "A Singer's Singer" has been applied to several artists.
However, none deserves the title more than Jimmy Scott.

    Nancy Wilson

It was dramatic when Jimmy came out in the solo spot.
He'd just stand there with his shoulders hunched and his eyes closed
and his head tilted to one side.
He sang like a horn - he sang with the melodic concept of an instrument.
It's a very emotional, soul-penetrating style.
Jimmy used to tear my heart out every night.

    Quincy Jones

Jimmy Scott is a mocha-hued marionette of a man
whose singing can simultaneously make you feel happy and sad.
A living master of the classic American ballad, he deals with time and space
the way Michael Jordan deals with up and air.
More than any singer I've ever heard, he sounds like an instrument.
If your mind can pull itself away from the words
and just concentrate on the sound and conception,
you'd swear someone was playing a saxophone.
He sings more slowly than anyone ever has or probably ever will.
The sound of his voice defines androgyny.
A true original.

    Joel Dorn

Listening to Jimmy is like having a performing heart.
The experience of life and the art of expression sing through Jimmy
and make us partners in his incredible passion.
I love him and I never want to say goodbye.
When the song stops with Jimmy's last note we're back in the world as it was.
Not quite so pretty, not quite so passionate.
And we can only wait for Jimmy to sing again and take us that little bit higher.

It's like seeing Hamlet or MacBeth all rolled up into a song.

    Lou Reed

He (Little Jimmy Scott) does things to a song that nobody else does.
So he's an original, an original voice.
It's haunting. And it's so pure soulful.

    David Lynch

Jimmy Scott is the only singer who'd ever really made me cry, he is like no other !

    Madonna

If I could sing like anybody in the world, I would sing like Little Jimmy Scott.

    Sherman Helmsley

Hommage To Jimmy Scott < No.1 >   < No.2 >< in Japanese only >

2001/05/26    Last update 2004/03/06

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JIMMY SCOTT Fan Site On The Music Planet