A SINGING bus driver from Nottingham is proving a hit on the other side of the world.
Jamie Macdonald, 24, features on a CD which has just won an award in Hawaii.
Jamie, who sings while working on the Trent Barton Indigo service from Nottingham to Derby, recorded the song at the tropical island studio of Reggie Griffin, a Grammy nominee who has worked alongside Chaka Khan and Stevie Wonder.
The bus driver, who lives in Forest Fields, said it had been the best experience of his life. He said: "I'm as pleased as punch about the award.
"The whole thing is surreal. It was nerve-wracking and I was very honoured and humbled to work with Reggie – he's worked with so many inspirational singers. It's been absolutely fantastic."
Jamie sings a reggae song called Calling Me Home on the album Good Company, which won the pop category in the Big Island Music Awards 2012.
It has always been Jamie's ambition to become a professional singer and he has applied to BBC1's The Voice. Despite being recorded in Hawaii, Good Company has strong Nottingham connections.
Jamie was invited to sing on the CD by the woman who used to look after him at Forest Fields children's centre, in Russell Road, when he was five. Former senior play worker Roslin Sinclair moved to Hawaii in 1999, where she is now a singer-songwriter.
Good Company is her debut album and her younger sister Madeleine is producer and co-writer. Roslin wrote the song Jamie sings when she was homesick for Nottingham.
The two met again in 2004 when Jamie was a 16-year-old Royal Navy cadet and a volunteer at the children's centre and Roslin was on a return visit to the UK with her musician husband, Scotty Nelson. Jamie, who sang in a gospel choir at Trinity School, in Aspley, and was already proving to be a talented vocalist, gave them a spontaneous rendition of Stand By Me.
"We were so impressed," Roslin recalled.
And although the two became friends on Facebook, they drifted apart until 2009 when they began talking to each other on the site's chat function.
Roslin, 50, said: "He said he'd love to sing one of my songs one day. We thought that would be cool and were fantasising about it. He sent me a demo and it was brilliant."
Roslin, who used to attend Arnold Hill School and worked as a florist in Clifton when she was 17, played the demo to producer Reggie Griffin.
Within weeks, Jamie was jetting out to Hawaii – his first flight after years of sailing the seas in the Navy – to record the song at Reggie's studio. He also ended up performing with Roslin's band, Redd, at the Blue Dragon Night Club, in Waimea, on top of hanging out in a tropical paradise for three weeks.
Roslin said: "Jamie is incredibly talented and has a great voice. To work with a producer with the calibre of Reggie, that's a great thing for a young aspiring singer."
Griffin was a major influence on Roslin during her formative years. "I used to dance to music he produced in Nottingham nightclubs."
Jamie and Roslin met up again earlier this month when she returned to Nottingham to visit her mother, Margaret, who lives in Mapperley Park.