“I still haven’t written my best song I’m pursuing that all the time. If my music can uplift someone to make them want to live a better life and not give up, that is a big success for me.” Jimmy Cliff
For 60 years, Jamaican singer-songwriter and actor Jimmy Cliff stood head and shoulders above other musicians from the Caribbean Island.
His death at the age of 81, announced by his family on Monday this week, closes the chapter on one of the most enduring musicians, not just of Jamaica’s trademark ska/reggae genres, but the wider world of pop music.
His signature anthems, You Can Get It If You Really Want, Wonderful World Beautiful People, The Harder They Come, Many Rivers to Cross and Hard Road to Travel, were fundamentally reggae but enriched with influences of pop, rock, and soul.
That distinctive, sweet, soaring voice delivered lyrics that resonated with social, political and economic realities, from the human cost of the Vietnam War to championing the anti- apartheid movement in the 1980s.
“His music holds immense appeal to audiences all over the world because he spoke to the everyday struggles of the people,” says David Katz, author of Jimmy Cliff: An Unauthorized Biography in an email response to the BDLife this week.
“Drawing on his own experience he sang songs of hardship, struggle and determination in a way that everyone could identify with. He had a readily identifiable voice that once heard could never be forgotten,” adds Katz, an American author/filmmaker who is a leading world authority on reggae.
Even though he was a torch bearer for reggae, Cliff collaborated with a host of artistes outside his genre, notably the Rolling Stones, Annie Lennox, Willie Nelson, Cher, and Kool and the Gang.
While on a visit to Kinshasa in 1986, he made a foray into rumba by recording Shout for Freedom with the iconic Congolese band, T.P. OK Jazz for his album War a Africa. He paired with South African vocalist Lebo M for a rendition of Hakuna Matata featured in 1994’s blockbuster film, The Lion King.
In 2010, Cliff became only the second reggae musician, after Bob Marley, to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “When we saw Jimmy Cliff, we saw ourselves,” said Wyclef Jean during the induction ceremony of the man who inspired millions throughout Africa and its diaspora.
James Chambers was born July 30, 1944 and grew up in the village of Somerton, St. James, Jamaica. Just like the character he played in the classic film The Harder They Come, he left the countryside for Kingston as a teenager in 1962 and started recording songs with producer Leslie Kong. At the urging of Kong, he took on the name Cliff to signify the heights he aimed to attain in his career.
He relocated to London, UK and when his career failed to take off there, he returned to Jamaica. In 1969 Jimmy Cliff scored his first international hit with Wonderful World Beautiful People and Many Rivers to Cross. The latter, a gospel-imbued vocal and organ arrangement has since been widely covered by many artistes, from John Lennon to UB40.
In 1969 Jamaican film director-writer Perry Henzell offered Cliff his big screen debut in The Harder They Come, though the movie was not released, due to funding challenges, until 1972.
Cliff played the role of Ivan Martin, an aspiring young singer who leaves his rural village to pursue his dream of becoming a star in Kingston but in the process gets caught up in a world of crime and violence.
The soundtrack of the film, which contains songs by Cliff and host of other Jamaican stars like Desmond Dekker and Toots and the Maytals, is acknowledged as the first major introduction of Jamaican music culture to a global audience.
“His naturalistic appearance as Ivan in the film was entirely believable in part because he again worked his own experiences into the story through improvised dialogue,” says his biographer, Katz.
Jimmy Cliff released albums prolifically throughout the 1970s and 80s but his output slowed down in the 1990s even though he enjoyed some major hits such as his 1993 version of Johnny Nash’s I Can See Clearly Now. In 2022, his first album in a decade, Refugee, raised awareness on the plight of millions displaced from their homes around the world
Cliff’s legacy, according to his biographer, is a catalogue of music built up over more than 60 years and the individual vision that governed his life and work. David Katz recalls that Cliff faced criticism when he performed in South Africa in 1980 in defiance of the cultural boycott against the apartheid regime. In a rare show of unity, 55, 000 people of all races packed the Orlando Stadium, Soweto for the concert.
“Jimmy Cliff did things on his own terms and his great conviction in using music for the betterment of mankind is another component of his legacy,” says Katz. “He regularly refreshed his band with top musicians, known and unknown, to keep his music perpetually fresh. He was a humanitarian at heart, and that shone through in his music. Add to that an undeniable charisma and you have the essence of Jimmy Cliff.”
