Jim and Jan first sang at Illick's Mill in 1966. The beauty of their voices and the unguarded love their songs express was an irresistible force. They came straight out of our cynical, intolerant, violent era. Therein lies most of the wonder. Have Faith.

The Singers Jim has been singing since he was a child in the island of Jamaica. In a large family, with competitive singing as a regular pastime, he was known at the age of six as the ‘screamer’ of the family. His high soprano voice wasn’t used like that of an English choir boy, but rather in a vigorous imitation of the great tenors of the forties and fifties. At seven Jim was learning his songs by listening to the radio. The songs of John McCormack, Jan Pearce, and Mario Lanza were reproduced to the minutest detail. The big break came on the Jamaican radio show, “Lannaman’s Children’s Hour,” where Jim triumphed with “Some Enchanted Evening” from South Pacific. Soon he was singing frequently over radio and on the stage throughout the island. At ten years of age he was called a prodigy, Jamaica’s Lanza, and fittingly, ‘little Tommy Tucker who sings for his supper.’

He met many outstanding world entertainers, including Nat King Cole and Billy Eckstine (who both planned to have him sing in the United States) and Sarah Vaughn. Jim’s most memorable musical success came when he won an all-island competition, singing “Beloved” from The Student Prince. This meant a prize trip to Trinidad during carnival. He was warmly received by the people of Trinidad, and was acclaimed by the Trinidad Guardian as one of the most promising singers in the world.

After high school Jim found that he was fortunate to have come from a boy soprano to a lyric tenor. This, he was told, was a rare thing among singers. But although his voice was still pleasant, his natural gift in technique and expression was not what it had been in childhood days. At times, when carried away in song, he would recapture the special ‘thing’ which had made his childhood singing so appealing. He would hear ‘Bravo’ and ‘That was great!’ from the next room – but it was obvious that Jim’s boyhood confidence was a thing of the past. He knew that from then on, hard work would be the only path to achievement. Jim left his native Jamaica in September 1963, with a song in his heart and nothing in his pocket but faith, to further his education in the United States.

Janet’s story is somewhat different. Before coming to college her singing was with choirs and choruses as well as with campers during the folk song era. Jim met Jan one evening as he was preparing for an international festival at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. As he entered Clewell Hall–the foreign language dorm for women – someone shouted, “Hey, Jim, sing us a Jamaican song!” So he said, “Well, if I sing without someone to play for me it will be a poor job.” At once he learned this was not the best thing to say. Who else but Janet was saying, “I’ll play for you, if you start off by singing one verse unaccompanied.” Soon everyone was singing ‘Carry Me Ackee Go a Linstead Market,’ ‘Come Back, Liza,’ ‘Island in the Sun,’ and others. Songs were sung in succession, and some were interwoven. So it was that Jim and Jan’s rounds and medleys came into being.

What began on campus as co-ed fun soon became, on campus and in the community, Singing with a Purpose. Jan was thrilled each time their listeners would join in singing ‘Matilda’ with real youthful enthusiasm. For Jim this meant a time to point out the deeper meanings of these simple folk songs – how they tell the sufferings and dreams of humanity, with a melodic simplicity we have forgotten how to cherish.

Jim and Jan feel that their songs are performed in a fresh, original style, especially their medleys. They have something to tell. If you get it, they shall have achieved their purpose. Part of that purpose is to awaken in us feelings which the hasty clatter of life today has numbed below all nature. Yet they sing not of ideals, because for many that word has lost its relevance in the deluge of false rhetoric that pours down on us from the thunderheads of earthly power. Instead, they sing of authentic human life as it is lived by some and hoped for by all. As you listen to them sing, may you enter into the spirit that bids them go forward, with a purpose.

• Bob Thompson, Illick's Mill, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania