By Tom Clifford
I am not a musician. I cannot read music. But, like all humans, I can appreciate music and I have been moved by it.
Jimmy Cliff, who has died at the age of 81, was one of the most prominent and beloved proponents of reggae music. His cause of death was a seizure followed by pneumonia. His gift, apart from his extraordinary talent, was that he made the genre accessible to a wider audience. And he stood for decency in the face of corruption. He was an artist who was deeply admired.
He helped to bring the sound of Jamaica to a global audience through hits such as Wonderful World, Beautiful People and You Can Get It If You Really Want.
The latter was one of my teen favourites. Its buoyant optimism and sunshine philosophy seemed strangely at odds with the grey skies and dampness of my country, Ireland.
His lead role as a gun-toting rebel in the 1972 crime drama The Harder They Come is a cornerstone of Jamaican cinema, and was attributed as the movie that brought reggae to America.
Born James Chambers in 1944. Cliff, as he became known, was the eighth of nine children who endured abject poverty in the parish of St. James, Jamaica.
Singing at his local church at the age of six, parishioners soon noted his melodious voice.
He listened to Derrick Morgan, a pioneer of ska – a precursor to reggae – on the radio and asked his woodwork teacher how one might compose and perform a song.
He told me, he said, “you just write it!’’
”So I went ahead and … wrote a song called I Need A Fiancée, another called Sob Sob and I made a guitar out of bamboo to accompany myself.”
By the time he was 14, he’d moved to Kingston and adopted the surname Cliff to express the heights he intended to attain.
After recording a handful of singles, he topped the Jamaican charts with his own composition, Hurricane Hattie.
His signature tunes include Many Rivers to Cross, Wonderful World, Beautiful People and Vietnam.
Bob Dylan considered the latter one of the great protest songs.
The lyrics of Vietnam are simple and direct.
“Yesterday, I got a letter from my friend fighting in Vietnam
And this is what he had to say
“Tell all my friends that I’ll be coming home soon
My time’ll be up sometime in June
Don’t forget,” he said, “To tell my sweet Mary
Her golden lips are sweet as cherry”.
Of course he never makes it. Lips sweet as cherry pays tribute to Tom Jones and his classic Green, Green Grass of Home. It’s an acknowledgement, a salute from one artist to another.
His real legacy is more than the music and words. He helped pave a path for Bob Marley and others to spread a universal message of defiance and hope. He was on the barricades seeking justice.
Following his death, Prime Minister Andrew Holness of Jamaica called him “a true cultural giant whose music carried the heart of our nation to the world’’.
Humanity benefited from his music and his presence.
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