Beloved reggae singer and Jamaican musical icon Jimmy Cliff has died at 81. The “Many Rivers to Cross” singer’s wife, Latifah Chambers, announced the news in an Instagram post on Monday morning (Nov. 24) that read, “It’s with profound sadness that I share that my husband, Jimmy Cliff, has crossed over due to a seizure followed by pneumonia. I am thankful for his family, friends, fellow artists and coworkers 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. He really appreciated each and every fan for their love.”
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Cliff, known for his high, clear vocals and lifelong focus on positvity, peace and unity, was known for such indelible reggae hits as “Many Rivers to Cross,” You Can Get It If You Really Want” and the title track to his beloved 1972 musical crime film The Harder They Come, in which he starred as lead character Ivanhoe “Ivan” Martin in a role that is credited with helping to bring the sound of reggae to the world.
One of the last living global ambassadors from the generation of reggae greats who brought the island’s music to the world — alongside late contemporaries Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Toots Hibbert and Bunny Wailer — before his death Cliff was the only living reggae artist to have earned Jamaica’s Order of Merit, the highest honor the nation’s government gives for achievements in the arts and sciences.
Born James Chambers on April 1, 1948 in the St. James parish of Jamaica near Montego Bay, Cliff’s talent was spotted early on at the Somerton All Age School in the 1950. The eighth of nine children, Cliff’s signature vocal tone, a high and mellifluous croon, immediately set him apart when he moved to Kingston at 14, adopted his more famous stage name and began cutting songs with an American R&B influence before making the connection that would change his life.
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Cliff managed to convince Leslie Kong — who owned a combo restaurant/ice cream parlor/cosmetics shop in Kingston called Beverley’s — to get into the music business. The label they formed, Beverley’s Records, released Cliff’s ska-tinged debut single, “Hurricane Hattie,” which ran to the top of the Jamaican charts and was followed by a string of hits sung and written by the artist including “Miss Jamaica,” “One-Eyed Jacks” and “King of Kings.”
He also befriended a 16-year-old Marley at that time and helped the soon-to-be-reggae icon score a recording deal with Kong to release his debut single, 1962’s “Judge Not.” Already a rising star in the first wave of ska music, Cliff was tapped to represent Jamaica at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York City alongside Millie Small, Prince Buster and others.
Impressed with their performances, soul giant Curtis Mayfield and producer Carl Davis compiled the 1964 album titled The Real Jamaica Ska, featuring two of Cliff’s compositions, “Ska All Over the World” and “Trust No Man.” More importantly, the World’s Fair is where Cliff met Jamaican expat and rising U.K. record mogul Chris Blackwell, founder of Island Records. After struggling to find his sound while recording in London, Cliff returned to Jamaica in 1969 to work on a series of originals and covers that would help kick-start his eventual global fame.
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He hit No. 25 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart with “Wonderful World, Beautiful People” in 1969, followed by the more urgent “Vietnam,” a track about a friend who was drafted into the U.S. army and never recovered from his war-time PTSD that Bob Dylan has called the best protest song he ever heard. In the summer of 1970 Cliff had another hit with a cover of Cat Stevens’ “Wild World,” compiled on his 1969 Wonderful World, Beautiful People LP. The next year, director Perry Henzell asked Cliff, who had no acting experience, to star in The Harder They Come, a slow-burn hit that mixed the joy of the nation’s music with clear-eyed depictions of social and economic conditions in what is still considered one of the greatest and most influential music films ever.
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Cliff is credited with almost single-handedly introducing the sound of reggae to the world via his masterful turn as country musician Ivan in The Harder They Come, in which the singer tries to break into Jamaica’s corrupt music industry as an avatar for the aspiration of being uplifted by music. He also contributed four indelible songs to the movie’s soundtrack: the ebullient “You Can Get It If You Really Want,” meditative “Sitting in Limbo,” the beloved title track and the quasi-religious meditation “Many Rivers to Cross.”
Just months before the Wailers, led by a young Bob Marley, would drop their debut on Island Records, Catch a Fire, The Harder They Come introduced Western, and most importantly American, audiences to the sounds and vibe of reggae music. The impact would reverberate for decades and generations, with everyone from Keith Richards to Rancid, Cher and Willie Nelson covering the movie’s title track and “Many Rivers to Cross” getting the same treatment from Annie Lennox, UB40, Lenny Kravitz, Linda Ronstadt and many more.
Following the movie’s success, Cliff signed to Warner Bros. Records and appeared as a musical guest during the first season of Saturday Night Live in 1976, but following his early rush of success, Cliff’s music career remained steady, though his global impact was less pronounced than that of Marley, who would quickly rise as the global avatar of reggae. Cliff continued to release albums throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, earning praise and respect from his musical peers, including Bruce Springsteen, who regularly added the little-known Cliff song “Trapped” to his band’s legendarily lengthy live sets; a live version of the song was included on the star-studded 1985 famine relief album We Are the World.
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A joyful ambassador of reggae, Cliff won a best reggae album Grammy in 1985 for Cliff Hanger, the same year he appeared alongside E Street Band guitarist “Little” Steven Van Zandt on the anti-apartheid song “Sun City.” After providing backing vocals on the Rolling Stones’ 1986 album Dirty Work, Cliff was back on the big screen in the Robin Williams comedy Club Paradise, whose soundtrack featured his duet with Elvis Costello on “Seven Day Weekend.”
Following a long chart drought, Cliff’s 1993 cover of Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now” from the soundtrack to the Jamaican bobsled team sports comedy Cool Runnings reached No. 18 on the Billboard Hot 100. He later teamed with South African producer/composer Lebo M on the single “Hakuna Matata,” for the soundtrack to Disney’s 1994 mega-hit The Lion King.
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Cliff was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010 by the Fugees’ Wyclef Jean and the next year his generational impact on music came full circle when he entered the studio with Tim Armstrong, lead singer of ska-influenced Bay Area punk legends Rancid to record the album Rebirth. The joyous collection of originals (“World Upside Down,” “Reggae Music,” “One More”) and covers including takes on the Clash’s “Guns of Brixton” and Rancid’s “Ruby Soho” earned Cliff a Grammy for best reggae album and reintroduced the legend to a whole new generation. Cliff released his final studio album, Refugees, in August 2022.
