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Title
The Essential Jimmy Cliff
Artist
Jimmy Cliff |
Format: Double CD
Cat. No.: METRDCD600
Barcode: 698458710024
Playing Time: Approx 2 hours
| | | | Jimmy Cliff was Jamaica’s first international superstar, cutting a path that Bob Marley would later follow. This collection brings you the stunning songs that made Jimmy a legend, including: ‘Many Rivers To Cross’, ‘Wonderful World, Beautiful People’, ‘Vietnam’, ‘Bongo Man’, plus the early ska hits that are now so collectable, all in their original versions. See Reviews |
Track List
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| 1 |
Wonderful World, Beautiful People | |
| 2 |
You Can Get It If You Really Want | |
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| 8 |
That's The Way Life Goes | |
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| 11 |
Better Days Are Coming | |
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| 11 |
One Eyed Jacks (1st Version) | |
| 12 |
One Eyed Jacks (2nd Version) | |
| 13 |
King Of Kings (1st Version) | |
| 14 |
King Of Kings (2nd Version) | |
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| 19 |
Hard Road To Travel (Alternate Mix) | | |
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Jimmy Cliff was reggae's prototype global superstar. He was the first Ska singer with a truly feisty attitude. He pioneered the concept of a Jamaican act being a serious singer-songwriter. He was Jamaica's first home-grown movie icon in the island's first home-grown movie. And he is also Jamaican music's great survivor; he's still out there, recording, performing, as vital a force as ever. In a business that is more cut-throat than any other branch of the music industry, where an artist is only ever as good as his last record, that's no mean achievement in itself.
Jimmy Cliff began his career at a time when the Jamaican music industry was barely an industry at all. It was more just a case of "tryin' a t'ing" by local entrepreneurs - just taking a punt to see if it worked. One such entrepreneur was Leslie Kong, the owner of an ice cream parlour called Beverley's on Orange Street, Kingston, Jamaica. With an enterprising spirit of his own, aspiring singer James Chambers walked into the parlour towards the end of 1961 and sang Mr Kong a song he had crafted with the idea of marketing it for just such an event, "Dearest Beverley". Kong, evidently flattered by a song that apparently promoted his shop, decided to dip his toe in the shark-infested waters of the ska business. The record that resulted from this decision would not only launch the lengthy and phenomenally successful career of the singer, it also opened the account of one of the greatest reggae producers of the 1960s – that of Leslie Kong himself.
While James Chambers was only 14 at the time, he was not a complete stranger to the music biz when he turned up in Kong’s shop. He’d recorded a couple of songs prior to this, notably “Daisy Got Me Crazy” for sound system operator Count Boysie and “I’m Sorry” for Sir Cavaliers’ Hi Tone label. The former sold reasonably on the local market and the latter found its way to the Blue Beat label for a UK release, but the young Mr Chambers’ stage name of Jimmy Cliff hardly had the makings of a legend at this point and he was still scratching around asking local shop owners for an opportunity to record again. But Mr Kong would help change that.
While the singer had limited experience of recording, Leslie Kong had none, and as a naturally cautious fellow, he gathered round him some other experienced parties to spread the load a little. He recruited another singer, Derrick Morgan, who had recorded with Coxsone Dodd (now known as the boss of Studio 1) and Prince Buster among others, as a kind of A&R supervisor. Morgan roped in Owen Gray, another experienced voice, and the three singers cut the debut sides issued on Mr Kong’s Beverley’s Records label. Jimmy Cliff’s first for Beverley’s was not actually “Dearest Beverley”; instead, “Hurricane Hattie” had that honour, but “Dearest Beverley” followed immediately after. Both were hits and singer and producer were on their way to fame. Pretty soon, Kong would record the debuts of three other legends of Jamaican music: Bob Marley, John Holt and Desmond Dekker. But together with Derrick Morgan, Jimmy Cliff was Kong’s biggest ska star back then.
Jimmy Cliff brought a certain attitude to his music. He was young, fresh and good-looking, and if his voice was kind of raw, that didn’t really matter in the days of ska when the ability to put your lyric across against the thunderous tempos of the music counted for more than an amazing singing ability. He also wrote his own songs right from the off, and had a way of making the titles memorable: “Hurricane Hattie”, “Daisy Got Me Crazy”, “One Eyed Jacks”; all had a certain resonance in the rough-and-tumble optimism of the newly-independent Jamaica. Kong cut a heap of strong sides with the youth in 1962-3, including “My Lucky Day”, “King Of Kings”, “The Man”, “Since Lately”, “I’m Free”, and the massive “Miss Jamaica”, adopted by the beauty contest of the same title – a further sign of Jimmy’s natural affinity for marketing his work, even if “Miss Universe” didn’t enjoy similar success. Jimmy Cliff was now a star in Jamaica. But this thoughtful kid was starting to wonder if there were further territories he could conquer.
An international way of thinking might have seemed unusual in a young Jamaican singer back then, but in fact, it made perfect sense. It was a time when it was seen as the normal thing to do for a young Jamaican man to try his luck elsewhere in the hope of earning a good living; emigrants would leave for Britain and America in search of a better life, and Jimmy was probably aware that Kong had been licensing his records to Island records in the UK as the producer, unlike so many others, was generally honest to his artists about his business dealings and had a reputation for being a better payer than his rivals. Jimmy got an opportunity to test out a foreign reaction to his talents when he joined a 1964 package tour to America that also featured Byron Lee & The Dragonaires and Millie. While the tour quickly petered out, a gig at the New York World’s Fair was attended by Millie’s manager, Island Records boss Chris Blackwell, who was impressed by Jimmy’s performance and was glad to meet the singer he’d been licensing records by. Blackwell suggested that Jimmy join up with him in London and in 1965 Jimmy took up his offer.
This time it took Jimmy a little longer to find his feet and after a silent 1965, and just a solitary single on Fontana, “Call On Me”, in 1966, Jimmy saw three singles released on Island in 1967. Among them were some genuine Cliff classics, “That’s The Way Life Goes” and the title of his debut album, released in 1968, “Hard Road To Travel”, presented on this collection in two variant takes. This was an altogether different Jimmy Cliff to the wild young ska singer we’d heard previously. Blackwell had encouraged Jimmy to work on his songwriting, and his muse was now more reflective, perhaps informed by the change of lifestyle he’d endured in moving from being a star in Jamaica to becoming an anonymous struggler in the UK. However, there was no doubt that his new style would serve him well for the rest of his career. He also became influenced by rock, working with Ian Hunter and recording a cover of “A Whiter Shade Of Pale”.
If it was perhaps logical that Jimmy would move to the UK, his next move was less so. In 1968 he represented Jamaica at the International Song Festival in Brazil with “Waterfall”. It won, and Jimmy spent the best part of a year promoting the song, which was a huge hit there. Returning to Jamaica, he was reunited with Leslie Kong, by now the most internationally-successful reggae producer, in 1969 and recorded “Wonderful World, Beautiful People”, which Jimmy had written in Brazil. Full of the exuberance of Rio, the song was licensed by Trojan who dubbed strings on it in the UK and saw it soar up the charts to No6. The follow-up, “Vietnam”, had a similar rhythmic vibe but a more serious lyric. Although it was only a small UK hit, Bob Dylan declared it: “Not only the best song about the war but the best protest song I’ve heard”. Trojan released the album Jimmy Cliff” in 1969, and singles the label issued in 1970 included “Sufferin’” and “You Can Get It If You Really Want”. While the latter didn’t hit, a cover by Jimmy’s Beverley’s labelmate in Jamaica, Desmond Dekker, took it into the UK charts later that year.
Returning to Trojan’s sister label, Island records, Jimmy hit again with a cover of Cat Stevens’ “Wild World”, making it a reggae staple in the process, later to be covered by Maxi Priest and Freddie McGregor. While his work was apparently leading him further from his roots, with strings and occasionally rock’n’roll-ish arrangements, Jimmy’s next move put him squarely at the heart of Kingston street culture when he starred as the rude boy singer at the heart of the first home-grown Jamaican movie, The Harder They Come. Supposedly based on the story of Rhygin, the Jamaican outlaw, it expanded the tale to take in the rip-offs of the reggae business and the struggles of a kid from the country trying to find a place for himself in the tough world that was and still is Kingston. More than just a singer, the movie made Jimmy an icon.
Again his songwriting came to the fore on the movie’s soundtrack, with the title song and the anthemic “Many Rivers To Cross” proving their worth over the years, the latter hitting massively in the hands of UB40 in the Christmas of 1983. Jimmy would later perform it with Sounds Of Blackness, fitting company considering his increasingly emotive, gospellish singing style.
The Harder They Come represented the peak of his success. While Island promoted him in a manner that they would later use to great effect with Bob Marley, somehow Jimmy never quite got the respect his talents deserved. Whether it was because of his outsider status in Jamaica, as a convert to Islam in a reggae world obsessed with Rasta, is not clear. If so, it was hardly fair: he sang about the Rasta lifestyle as long ago as 1969 in the song “Bongo Man”. The death of his mentor Leslie Kong in 1971 may also have been a factor. Further contracts with CBS and EMI, plus his excellent work, both as an artist, and as a producer for other talents such as Joe Higgs, Freddie McKay and Nora Dean on his own Sunpower label, failed to deliver the international success that was expected of him. Nevertheless he retained a huge underground following and tours of America and a journey of self-discovery through Africa fired his artistic muse still further. The 1981 movie “Bongo Man” followed his movements for months, and he kept his acting chops in fine fettle in 1986’s “Club Paradise”, starring alongside Robin Williams and Peter O’Toole.
This collection will bring you the flavour of the young and hungry Jimmy Cliff, from his earliest ska efforts to his classic late 60s hits for Trojan. Jimmy Cliff is more than just a survivor. He remains a one-off, a unique talent capable of turning his hand to everything, from movies to rock’n’roll, from ska to serious songwriting, yet somehow you always know exactly who it is you are hearing every time he opens his mouth. Nobody else does what he does exactly the way he does it. Singer, songwriter, actor, performer, producer, pioneer, icon; they’re all Jimmy Cliff. | |
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