KINGSTON, Nov 24 (Reuters) – Jimmy Cliff, the legendary Jamaican singer who together with Bob Marley popularized reggae, ska and rocksteady music over a six decade profession, has died, his spouse Latifa Chambers introduced on Fb on Monday.
The trigger was a seizure adopted by pneumonia, she mentioned.
Born James Chambers on July 30, 1944 throughout a hurricane in St. James Parish, northwestern Jamaica, he moved within the Nineteen Fifties from the household farm to the nation’s capital Kingston together with his father, decided to achieve the music business.
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At simply 14 he grew to become nationally well-known for the tune “Hurricane Hattie,” which he wrote.
Cliff would go on to report over 30 albums and carry out everywhere in the world, together with in Paris, in Brazil and on the World’s Honest, a world exhibition held in New York in 1964. The next 12 months, Island Information’ Chris Blackwell, the producer who launched Bob Marley and the Wailers, invited Cliff to work within the U.Ok. with him.
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Cliff later went into performing, starring within the 1972 basic movie “The Harder They Come,” directed by Perry Henzell, which launched a world viewers to reggae music. The film portrayed the grittier features of Jamaican life, redefining the island as greater than a vacationer playground of cocktails, seashores and waterfalls.
“When I’ve achieved all my ambitions, then I guess that I will have done it and I can just say ‘great’,” he mentioned in a 2019 interview, as he was dropping his sight.
“But I’m still hungry. I want it. I’ve still got the burning fire that burns brightly inside of me – like I just said to you. I still have many rivers to cross!”
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Identified partly for singles “You Can Get It If You Really Want It” and “Many Rivers To Cross,” in addition to for his covers of Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now,” which appeared on the soundtrack of the 1993 film “Cool Runnings,” and Cat Stevens’ “Wild World,” Cliff was a prolific author who weaved his humanitarian views into his songs.
Bob Dylan mentioned Cliff’s “Vietnam” was the most effective protest tune ever written.
The anti-establishment bent of Cliff’s music gave a voice not solely to the hardships confronted by Jamaicans, however to the spirit and pleasure that persevered regardless of poverty and oppression. Over time, Cliff labored with the Rolling Stones, Elvis Costello, Annie Lennox and Paul Simon.
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In 2012, he gained a Grammy Award for greatest reggae album for “Rebirth,” which was produced by punk band Rancid’s Tim Armstrong, and one other Grammy in 1984 for “Cliff Hanger.”
Cliff obtained the Order of Advantage, the very best honour within the arts and sciences, from the Jamaican authorities. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame in 2010. (Modifying by Diane Craft)
