Jimmy's tribute to Marcus Garvey is a gem of cultural expression and Tucker is at his vocal best. The music commemorates Garvey's story. Tucker offers an important piece of creative work for all lovers of beautiful music, a priceless gift of heritage.

One God! One Aim! One Destiny! Is a commemorative musical tribute to Marcus Mosiah Garvey, the great African-American leader and first National Hero of Jamaica.

This is the CD (music component) of Jimmy Tucker’s musical/literary tribute to the Honorable Marcus Garvey. It is a gem of cultural expression and Tucker is at his vocal best. His rendition of “Trees” is touching and nostalgic. His own piece, “Let There Be Liberty,” has captured the artistic spirit of the Garvey movement. Jimmy is truly the Dean of Jamaican singers. Tucker’s line is clear on Garvey’s legacy for Jamaica, the Caribbean and the international community. He joins a number of creative artistes and intellectuals in affirming that Garveyism is a cultural reference point for the emancipated mind. This is an important piece of creative work for all lovers of beautiful music and all who would wish to learn more about Marcus Garvey’s cultural legacy and message. It is a priceless gift of heritage.

Marcus Garvey’s cultural legacy teaches us that a good thing is happening. The spiritual and industrial rebirth of sovereign African peoples and the victory of that geo-political struggle in South Africa will help to shape a fateful balance of human relations, as we enter the twenty-first century. LIFT EVERY VOICE AND SING!”

-Jimmy Tucker 1987

Recorded at Tuff Gong and Federal Studios, Jimmy sings selected Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual songs for reflection on many important issues for religious thought and practice; Jimmy's lyric tenor voice expresses his convictions and emotions to his listener.

Jimmy Tucker’s Great Gifts of Heritage, Promoting Jamaica’s Cultural Heritage, Talents and Resources

Tucker is Jamaica’s first singing sensation whose brilliance has endured for more than fifty years. According to biographer Clyde Hoyte, “In Jimmy Tucker of Jamaica, the world, and particularly the history of vocal recorded music, has, for the first time, recordings and a story of a boy soprano – tenor, with celebrated recognition of more than fifty years of vocal excellence.” Shekinah - Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs.

Shekinah is a classical recording of some original sacred songs of Jamaica, including The Right Hand of God, the hymn song of the Caribbean Conference of Churches, How Lovely Are Thy Dwellings, Psalm 84; I Will Lift up Mine Eyes, Psalm 121, and Psalm 27 - The Lord is My Light.

The Great Gifts of Heritage is a series of musical and literary publications, CD and companion books, sung, written and produced by Jimmy Tucker, except the Jimmy Tucker Story by Clyde Hoyte. Each package in the series addresses a significant and fundamental theme of Jamaica’s cultural heritage.

On Earth Day 1990, Jimmy wrote:
I hold the view that the vital values of self-worth and self-confidence, in the character of a Nation, are best attained by a cultivated respect for The Rule of Law and the Practise of Equity.
In the case of Jamaica, these values of self-worth and self-confidence, are best attained from the cultivated strength of its families, ethnic and racial groups, in communities where there is respect for and promotion of essential retentions of a plural heritage. It follows, therefore, that in the years ahead, it is from this matter of values, face to face with law, equity and the essential retentions of our plural heritage, that the prospects for civil, political, economic, social and cultural advancement of Jamaica will, of necessity, be worked out. I believe that Jamaica, a small, yet important nation in the international community will have its true mission and destiny taken up…a mission and a destiny that have already been revealed from our courageous intellectual history and spiritual heritage.

Listen to music you will love. Be inspired as you share great moments in Jamaica’s history!

Jimmy Tucker sings Jamaican Carols, Hymns and Songs - with traditional and lively arrangements accompanied by Ernie Ranglin, Glen Brownie, Paulette Bellamy, Peter Ashbourne, Jon Williams, Maurice Gordon, Desmond Jones, Dwight Pinkney & Minkey Jefferson.

The Spirit of Christmas - Jimmy Tucker presents Jamaica's Christmas Delight!

Jimmy is pleased to commend this CD produced in 1985. Jimmy writes: "I recall that one edition of Christmas in Jamaica (the companion book to The Spirit of Christmas) referred to the traditional 'Christmas Breeze' , a most cherished reminder that Christmas is The Season of Thanksgiving.

I recall that although Christianity eventually became the religion of The Roman Empire, and of Europe and America, which had not guaranteed Peace among Nations, there were kindred peoples throughout the earth who had been born of the Spirit, and who are working for peace. Now in the 21st Century, I greet you, in the abiding Spirit of the Great One, and of that traditional Christmas Spirit of Jamaica."

Peace and Love, Jimmy

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