RIP Jimmy Cliff
A 2010 conversation with the Jamaican legend
The mighty Jimmy Cliff died this week, at age 81. He took his stage surname in the early 1960s to symbolize the heights he wanted to climb, which began when he was selected to perform his song “Miss Jamaica” at the 1964 World Fair in New York City, two years after his country’s independence, and almost a decade before Bob Marley’s first album for Island Records. Cliff did more for reggae music’s popularity than anyone other than Marley, who Cliff introduced to producer Leslie Kong when both singers were teenagers.
(This week’s live music listings are here.)
In 2010 I had the immense pleasure of talking to Cliff on the phone in advance of a Toronto show at Massey Hall, for a piece that ran in the venue’s print program (remember those?). Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make the show itself, and I never did see Cliff live. But I cherish this conversation.
Here he is in fine form a year later, age 67:
Jimmy Cliff is known largely, of course, for starring in the 1973 film The Harder They Come, which put black Jamaican culture on film for the first time, and for appearing on the classic soundtrack, which is one of the greatest albums of all time.
He’s also known for doing some magnificent cover versions, including his take on Cat Stevens’s “Wild World” in 1970, released mere weeks within the original. His final hit, in 1993, was a cover of Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now,” for the John Candy Jamaican bobsled comedy Cool Runnings.
But one of Cliff’s lesser-known songs became one of the greatest covers I’ve ever heard, in the hands of Bruce Springsteen. The American singer started covering Cliff’s 1972 obscurity “Trapped” on The River tour in 1981 — changing it to a more appropriate minor key — and contributed a live recording of it for the We Are the World album in 1985. He played it almost every night on the Born in the U.S.A. tour in 1984–85, and it’s popped up regularly since then, as recently as this year. I didn’t hear it until it popped up on the bonus disc of 2003’s Essential Bruce Springsteen collection, and was floored. This is from 1985:
For paid subscribers, here’s my conversation with Cliff, where we talk about Toronto’s importance to reggae music, the then-recent stage adaptation of The Harder They Come, spiritual connections, his favourite modern Jamaican artists, how much he likes Green Day. He gets unusually dodgy when I ask him about his children, or who might be his children, or whose responsibility it is to raise them.
Mostly, though, Cliff was here to spread positivity.
Jimmy Cliff
April 22, 2010
From what I can tell, you have not been to Toronto in eight years. Toronto, as you know, is a huge place for reggae music.
That’s one of the reasons I’m looking forward to it. They are great fans of Jamaican music, but also my brand of Jamaican music. Toronto has always been interesting and important place for music in general — and for reggae music. I remember on my first North American tour, when my movie had just made a big impact all over the world, what the media said in Canada kind of filtered through to the rest of North America. That makes Canada, particularly Toronto, very important.
