The story of Jimmy Cliff, who has died at age 81, is in part the story of reggae itself.
Like so many Jamaican teens of his time, he moved to Kingston in the early 1960s and joined a rising musical movement that would help give voice to the country's independence from Great Britain. A decade later, he helped reggae ascend to the international stage with his starring role in the cult favorite “The Harder They Come” and his featured place on the film's classic soundtrack. In the years following, his songs were covered by everyone from Bruce Springsteen to UB40 and confirmed the music's power to inspire or just get you dancing.
Here are a few songs that trace the arc of his career, and of reggae.
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1962: “Miss Jamaica”
Singing along to an easy, bluesy groove, Cliff had a way of sounding both relaxed and fully committed, and could make a nursery rhyme sound like an anthem: “Roses are red / violets are blue / Believe me / I love you.” He also joined a long popular tradition, most famously expressed in such 1970s standards as Billy Joel's “Just the Way You Are” and Springsteen's “Thunder Road,” of offering praise to a very personal kind of beauty: “Although you may not have such a fabulous shape / To suit the rest of the world / But you do suit me and that’s all I want to know.”
1968: “Vietnam”
Like Marvin Gaye's “What's Going On” and other anti-war songs, Cliff's “Vietnam” was drawn from the horrors of those who had served overseas. “Vietnam” was a seething, mid-tempo chant — “Vi-et-nam, Vi-et-nam,” the very name an indictment, in this song for the death of a soldier who had written home to say he would soon be returning, only for his mother to receive a telegram the next day announcing his death.
1969: “Wonderful World, Beautiful People”
One of Cliff's many talents was looking clear-eyed at life as it is, and imagining so well what it could be — a paradise made real by the melody, the feel and lyrics of “Wonderful World, Beautiful People,” a vision so inevitable even the likes of President Richard Nixon and British Prime Minister Harold Wilson can't get in the way. “This is our world, can’t you see? / Everybody wants to live and be free.”
1969: “Many Rivers to Cross”
Onstage, he sometimes literally jumped for joy, but Cliff also could call out the deepest notes of despair. The somber, gospel-style “Many Rivers to Cross” was inspired by the racism he encountered in England in the 1960s and tells a story of displacement, longing, fatigue and gathering rage — but never defeat. “I merely survive because of my pride,” he tells us, a variation of the old saying that hopes dies last.
1970: “You Can Get It If You Really Want”
Cliff’s political songs were so enduring in part because they were so catchy, and because they offered hope without the promise of easy success. Kicked off by a spare horn riff, “You Can Get It If You Really Want” has a lighter mood than “Vietnam,” but just as determined a spirit. “You must try, try and try, try and try,” Cliff warns. “Persecution you must fear / Win or lose you got to get your share.”
1972: “The Harder They Come”
The title track to the movie which would mark the high point of his success, “The Harder They Come” has a spiky, muscular rhythm, the kind you could set to the forward march of a mass protest. It’s a sermon of retribution for oppressors — “the harder they fall, one and all” — and of earthly rewards for those who have been robbed: “So as sure as the sun will shine / I’m gonna get my share now, what’s mine.”
