Photo Credit: Jimmy Cliff by Thesupermat / CC by 3.0
Jimmy Cliff, a cornerstone artist of reggae music who helped bring the sound of Jamaica to a global audience, has died at the age of 81.
Jimmy Cliff, a beloved pioneer of reggae music, has passed away at the age of 81. Since the 1960s, he helped bring the sound of Jamaica to a global audience with hits like “Wonderful World, Beautiful People,” and “You Can Get It If You Really Want.”
In the 1972 crime drama, The Harder They Come, his lead role as a rebel is widely considered a pillar of Jamaican cinema and attributed as the film that introduced reggae to an American audience.
His wife, Latifa Chambers, confirmed his passing on social media.
“It’s with profound sadness that I share that my husband, Jimmy Cliff, has crossed over due to a seizure followed by pneumonia,” she wrote. “I am thankful for his family, friends, fellow artists, and co-workers who have shared his journey with him. To all his fans around the world, please know that your support was his strength throughout his whole career.”
Jimmy Cliff was born James Chambers in 1944, growing up as the eighth of nine children. They lived in poverty in the parish of St. James, Jamaica.
Cliff began singing at his local church at the age of six. He was inspired to write his own music when he heard ska pioneer Derrick Morgan on the radio. Cliff asked his woodwork teacher how to compose his own song to be like Morgan.
“He told me, ‘You just write it!’” he once told Mojo magazine. “So I went ahead and […] wrote a song called ‘I Need a Fiancee,’ and another called ‘Sob Sob,’ and I made a guitar out of bamboo to accompany myself.”
At 14, he moved to Kingston and took up the name Cliff “to express the heights he intended on reaching.” He recorded several singles before topping the Jamaican charts with “Hurrican Hattie.”
Cliff relocated to London in 1965 to work with Island Records, which would become the home of Bob Marley. But the label’s efforts to make Cliff sound more palatable to rock audiences didn’t go well. Nevertheless, he eventually hit it big with the 1969 single, “Wonderful World, Beautiful People.”
He became an international star with his role in the film The Harder They Come, and his song of the same name, which was expressly written for the movie. Cliff contributed four songs to the soundtrack.
“The film opened the door for Jamaica,” said Cliff. “It said, ‘This is where this music comes from.’”
In the 80s, he collaborated with the Rolling Stones on their Dirty Work album. He returned in 1993 to the U.S. charts with his cover of “I Can See Clearly Now,” which featured on the soundtrack for the film Cool Runnings—another film that has widely been considered instrumental in Jamaica’s globalization.
In 2010, he entered the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which he called “a great thrill and an honor.” Fugees star Wyclef Jean inducted him, saying how inspired by Cliff’s success he had been as a young boy growing up in Haiti.
Cliff continued touring late into his life. He played Glastonbury in 2003 and Coachella in 2010.
