Marcy Tigner, an avid Christian, started out her recording career as a gospel trombonist, having released a couple albums featuring her trombone playing. However, she felt her true calling was to sing gospel, and went through several voice teachers to help her try to get rid of her shrill, high-pitched childlike voice, but was unsuccessful. Undaunted, and encouraged by her husband, she decided to utilize her naturally childlike voice, and managed to get a gospel record contract, releasing many “Sing With Marcy” albums. However, she felt awkward performing for live audiences, since many people coming to see her assumed she was in fact a child.
Marcy also tried her hand at acting, and even appeared in a 1960 movie called “Teenage Diary.” One of the members of the cast was Vonda Kay Van Dyke (later Miss America 1965), who was a ventriloquist, and outspoken born-again Christian. Van Dyke recommended that Marcy try ventriloquism after hearing her squeaky singing voice, and suggested she read Paul Winchell’s book, “Ventriloquism for Fun and Profit.”
Marcy taught herself ventriloquism (well enough), and developed her gospel act built around a puppet that she called “Little Marcy.” Her popularity took off, and along with the eventual release of over 40 record albums, there were Little Marcy dolls, coloring books, videotapes, and television appearances, as well as her own radio program. Her success spawned dozens of other gospel ventriloquist acts, but without question, the most famous was Little Marcy.
Here is a video of Little Marcy singing a couple of songs, from a video called “Learning To Do God’s Work“:
Naturally, Marcy released a couple of Christmas albums as well, including “Christmas With Marcy,” which has the song “CHRISTMAS,” in which Marcy spells out “Christmas” using the letters as an acronym (”C is for the Christ child…” etc.).
In the 1980s, Marcy Tigner stopped recording, and also retired from performing, and she currently resides in Oregon. Her daughter Lauri was a contributing author for the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series of books. Little Marcy records are sought after by some record collectors, and gospel and ventriloquism continue to have a strong relationship.
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