\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div> \t\t\t\t\tJimmy Cliff with Tracy Chapman, Lauryn Hill and Eve during a 1999 tribute<\/a> to Bob Marley.<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tKevin Mazur\/WireImage<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tThe prevailing sense of disbelief is partly due to Cliff\u2019s tireless creative longevity. To call him a reggae legend<\/a> is to downplay the contributions of an artist whose voice rings out through every stage of modern Jamaican music.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a foundation man of the reggae<\/a> I\u2019ve always been one to go with the evolution of the music,\u201d he told me for a 2004 Vibe<\/em> article. \u201cWe evolved from ska to rock steady to reggae to rub-a-dub to raggamuffin and dancehall.\u201d Jimmy Cliff seemed so unshakable, so constant, he became something like the Rock of Ages. \u201cI am the living and the loving,\u201d he sang in 1980, one year before Robert Nesta Marley flew away home to Zion. \u201cI\u2019m the shelter in a hail of thunder.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat man\u2019s legacy is immense,\u201d says Bounty Killer, who collaborated with Cliff on a remix of his song \u201cHumanitarian\u201d during the pandemic. \u201cHe transcends across, like, six generations and every continent. Jimmy was like a Cliff of inspiration to all of us Jamaicans. We definitely lost one of our greatest icons. And he was such a beautiful soul, the most humble human.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n \n\tBuju Banton praised Jimmy Cliff\u2019s \u201cimpeccable musical skills and a voice unmatched,\u201d calling him \u201ca true father and mentor who was there for me in times of need to remind me of my purpose with encouraging words and wise wisdom. He shall never be forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWhere other artists might consider kicking back in their late seventies, Cliff approached music like a lifelong vocation. \u201cThe past five years, we get really close to Jimmy,\u201d says Roger Lewis, co-founder of the band Inner Circle, whose state-of-the-art Circle House studio in Miami \u2014 built with royalties from their Cops<\/em> theme song \u201cBad Boys\u201d \u2014 hosted many Jimmy Cliff sessions in recent times. Although Lewis says Jimmy couldn\u2019t see too well, he points out that \u201csight no stop you from sing.\u201d<\/p>\n When the day\u2019s work was done, Jimmy would regale the Circle House gang with stories from his 60-year career. \u201cJimmy, man, you need to write the book!\u201d Roger would tell him. Now he wishes he had recorded some of those late-night reasoning sessions. \u201cBwoy the man pack up and gone Iya,\u201d Lewis says mournfully.<\/p>\n \t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n \n\tThe first fruits of those sessions appeared on Jimmy\u2019s 2022 album, Refugees<\/em>, released when the artist was 78. He described the title track as \u201cnot just a song, but a movement,\u201d teaming up with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees to encourage listeners to volunteer, donate, and welcome asylum seekers into their communities. Refuting negative attitudes towards them as the result of \u201cignorance and wrong judgement,\u201d he said that refugees are actually \u201cquite extraordinary people, because they make miracles happen.\u201d And he should know.<\/p>\n \n\tJUST A FEW years ago, filmmaker (and Rolling Stone <\/em>contributor) Reshma B<\/a> interviewed Cliff for her BBC documentary Studio 17: The Lost Reggae Tapes<\/em><\/a>. \u201cWe had to set up really early because he had to get to the airport to go do a show somewhere,\u201d she recalls. \u201cHe showed up on time, fresh dressed in this red snakeskin outfit. He was such a robust person and very energetic. He seemed pretty youthful for someone in his seventies.\u201d<\/p>\n That snakeskin suit drove the audio man crazy \u2014 every time Jimmy moved, the material would creak. \u201cWe had to stop the interview at some points because the mic was picking up the sound of his suit,\u201d Reshma says with a smile. \u201cBut he was very professional about that.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tOf course, Cliff had plenty of experience being filmed. \u201cThe idea of playing someone other than myself has always attracted me since school days,\u201d said the star of the 1972 cult classic The Harder They Come<\/em><\/a>, the first feature film to be written, cast, shot, and produced in Jamaica. \u201cAnd I still think I\u2019m a better actor than singer.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tPerforming in Madrid in 2012.<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCarlos Alvarez\/Redferns\/Getty Images<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tThe white Jamaican filmmaker Perry Henzel approached the original Starbwoy in 1970 at Kingston\u2019s Dynamic Studios, just after he recorded the timeless classic \u201cYou Can Get It If You Really Want.\u201d Magic was thick as ganja smoke in the atmosphere.<\/p>\n \u201cA Caucasian bearded gentleman said to me, \u2018I\u2019m making a movie, do you think you could write the music for it?\u2019\u201d Cliff recalled. \u201cWhat do you mean if I \u2018think\u2019?\u201d he replied. \u201cI can do anything!\u201d Two months later he received a script with a note saying Henzel wanted Cliff to play the lead role of Ivan, a country boy who becomes \u201cRhygin\u201d \u2014 a real-life gangster folk hero. Cliff seasoned the screenplay with his own experiences as an underpaid recording artist struggling to survive.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThe impact that The Harder They Come<\/em> had on Jamaica has never been seen before or after,\u201d he told Reshma B, slapping his hands together to approximate how the movie, the music, and the rawness and realness of the actors hit international audiences. \u201cWhere is the music coming from?\u201d they asked, lighting the fuse of a worldwide reggae explosion. But Cliff was even prouder of the film\u2019s impact on Jamaican audiences. \u201cFor the first time they saw themselves upon the big screen,\u201d he said. \u201cNever they saw themselves on the big screen before. They saw one of their own living the life. So it gave them a real identity beyond independence.\u201d<\/p>\n The one-two knockout punch of The Harder They Come<\/em> was the film\u2019s soundtrack, packed with classics like the Melodians\u2019 \u201cRivers of Babylon,\u201d the Slickers\u2019 \u201cJohnny Too Bad,\u201d Scotty\u2019s early DJ cut \u201cDraw Your Brakes,\u201d and the Maytals\u2019 \u201cPressure Drop,\u201d which showcased Toots Hibbert\u2019s soulful roar. But four breathtaking Jimmy Cliff songs, including the title track, which he recorded the day he was first approached about the film, plus \u201cMany Rivers to Cross\u201d and \u201cSitting in Limbo\u201d \u2014 not to mention John Bryant\u2019s badass cover illustration of Jimmy Cliff as Rhygin with a pistol in each hand \u2014 made this Jimmy\u2019s landmark release.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cVery few single albums can be said to have changed music forever,\u201d read the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ballot when Jimmy Cliff was nominated in late 2009. Jimmy Cliff\u2019s The Harder They Come<\/em> is one. The album \u2014 and the movie that spawned it \u2014 introduced reggae to a worldwide audience and changed the image of the genre from a cruise ship soundtrack to music of inspiration and rebellion.\u201d<\/p>\n He won, being inducted the following spring at New York\u2019s Waldorf Astoria along with ABBA, Genesis, Iggy Pop & The Stooges, and the Hollies. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t be here without Jimmy Cliff,\u201d said Wyclef Jean as he introduced the second reggae artist ever to join the Hall of Fame. The first, of course, was Bob Marley, inducted posthumously in 1994.<\/p>\n Jimmy and Bob shared much more in common than Hall of Fame membership. In 1962, when they were both teenagers, Jimmy brought Bob to producer Leslie Kong, who recorded Marley\u2019s two first singles, \u201cJudge Not\u201d and \u201cOne Cup of Coffee.\u201d At the time, Bob was working as a welder along with Desmond Dekker, who mentioned that Jimmy had given him a chance to cut a record. \u201cJimmy was big then because he already had a hit,\u201d Bob recalled. \u201cI really love Jimmy because he always tries to help people out.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBeing big and having a hit were strictly a matter of perspective. When he moved from the country to Kingston town, Jimmy settled in the Western Kingston ghetto known as Back-O-Wall, a humble shanty town that was later bulldozed to build the notorious Tivoli Gardens garrison. \u201cEven though I wasn\u2019t really an out-and-out rude boy, I was around them,\u201d he said. \u201cBack-O-Wall was a place where everything kind of went on, you know. There was Prince Emanuel, one of the Rastafarian elders. That was the spiritual part that went on in Back-O-Wall. And then there were a lot of people who were \u2018bad men\u2019 in whatever way. That\u2019s where you would find them, and I hang out with a lot of them. You know, \u2018Come here, singer, come sing a song for we.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n For the first song that he recorded, Jimmy was offered a shilling. \u201cA shilling was maybe like a quarter,\u201d he says. \u201cI could buy a drink for that or maybe take a bus to school, cause I was still going to school then.\u201d Jimmy told me he refused. But in retrospect, he respected all the producers who created an internationally beloved genre from the ground up. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t easy for them to do what they were doing\u2026 So I still have to sympathize with them in many ways.\u201d<\/p>\n Jimmy was 17 when he met Leslie Kong, the youngest of three Chinese Jamaican brothers who ran an ice cream shop, restaurant, and record shop on Orange Street in downtown Kingston. His impromptu performance inspired Kong to start the Beverley\u2019s record label, whose first release was a Jimmy Cliff 45 featuring \u201cHurricane Hattie,\u201d a song about a Category 5 storm that narrowly missed Jamaica, with \u201cMy Dearest Beverly\u201d on the flip side. Kong wasted no time pivoting to A&R, holding auditions for aspiring talents like Dekker and Marley who sang their ideas while he played the piano, judging which tunes would work for the label.<\/p>\n Two years later, Jimmy Cliff was chosen to join a delegation of Jamaican artists performing at the 1964 World\u2019s Fair in New York City along with Prince Buster, Millie Small, and Byron Lee & the Dragonaires. During the festivities at the Jamaica Pavilion he met Island Records founder Chris Blackwell, who signed him to the label and encouraged him to move to London, where he met rock stars like Pete Townsend and Joe Cocker. On Jan. 14, 1967, he shared a stage with the Jimi Hendrix Experience at the Beachcomber Club in Nottingham. Jimi and Jimmy struck up a conversation<\/a> \u2014 \u201cYou can sing man\u2026 I just play my guitar\u201d \u2014 and they remained friends until Hendrix\u2019s death the following year.<\/p>\n \n\tRock stars love Jimmy Cliff. He never met Dylan, who reportedly called his 1970 record \u201cVietnam\u201d the \u201cgreatest protest song ever written.\u201d He did, however, speak with Paul Simon, who told Jimmy that he and Dylan sat up one night listening to his album Wonderful World, Beautiful People.<\/em> John Lennon recorded a version of \u201cMany Rivers To Cross\u201d \u2014 as did Martha Reeves and Billy Preston, Joe Cocker, the Animals, Harry Nilson, Arthur Lee, Linda Ronstadt, Lenny Kravitz, UB40, and Cher, to name a few. Coldplay bassist Guy Berryman has admitted that the band\u2019s touching \u201cFix You\u201d owes \u201ca bit of inspiration\u201d to the song (those organ chords are unmistakeable). Bruce Springsteen contributed a live version of Jimmy\u2019s song \u201cTrapped\u201d to the charity album We Are the World <\/em>and once invited him onstage to perform \u201cThe Harder They Come\u201d together. Jimmy also collabed with Joe Strummer, the Eurythmics, Sting, and Kool & The Gang.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tSuch cross-genre connections are not without complications. \u201cWe created this music out of a need for identity, recognition,\u201d Cliff told me. \u201cBecause before that, you know, to get any kind of respect we always have to play American music. And so we became frustrated with that\u2026 Out of all those feelings, what we now know as reggae developed. It\u2019s got its place in the world, it\u2019s got its place among all the forms of music. It\u2019s there, and always will be there.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tUNTIL LAST WEEK, Jimmy Cliff was the only living reggae musician to hold Jamaica\u2019s highest official honor, the Order of Merit. In 1997, the University of the West Indies conferred upon him an honorary doctorate for his contributions to the culture. A seven-time Grammy nominee, he won Best Reggae Album honors in 1986 for Cliff Hanger<\/em> and again in 2013 for Rebirth<\/em>. But he wasn\u2019t satisfied with merely winning \u2014 Jimmy wanted to win on TV. \u201cIt\u2019s a nice thing to be nominated for a Grammy,\u201d he told CBS News. \u201cHowever, I do think that people ought to see me on TV, accepting the Grammy. Not the way it is being done at the moment for a reggae Grammy where you just hear about it. It\u2019s about time they show me on TV.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
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