Jimmy Cliff, Jamaican reggae music pioneer, dies at 81

The singer recorded more than 30 albums and won two Grammys during his six-decade career.

Jimmy Cliff, the charismatic reggae pioneer and actor who preached joy, defiance and resilience in his classics, has died at 81.

Cliff’s wife, Latifa Chambers, announced his death on social media on Monday, adding that the cause was a seizure followed by pneumonia.

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Born James Chambers on July 30, 1944, during a hurricane in St James Parish in northwestern Jamaica, he moved in the 1950s from the family farm to the country’s capital, Kingston, with his father, determined to succeed in the music industry.

At 14, he became nationally famous for the song Hurricane Hattie, which he wrote.

Cliff would go on to record more than 30 albums and perform all over the world, including in Paris, Brazil and at the World’s Fair in New York in 1964.

The following year, Chris Blackwell of Island Records, the producer who launched Bob Marley and the Wailers, invited Cliff to work in the United Kingdom with him.

Acting career

Cliff later went into acting, starring in the 1972 classic film The Harder They Come, directed by Perry Henzell. The film has been credited with introducing an international audience to reggae music.

The movie portrayed the grittier aspects of Jamaican life, redefining the island as more than a tourist playground of cocktails, beaches and waterfalls.

Known in part for the singles You Can Get It If You Really Want It and Many Rivers To Cross as well as for his covers of Johnny Nash’s I Can See Clearly Now, which appeared on the soundtrack of the 1993 movie Cool Runnings, and Cat Stevens’s Wild World, Cliff was well known for weaving his humanitarian views into his songs.

American folk artist Bob Dylan has called Cliff’s Vietnam the best protest song ever written.

The antiestablishment bent of Cliff’s music gave a voice not only to the hardships faced by Jamaicans but also to the spirit and joy that persevered in spite of poverty and oppression.

Over the years, Cliff worked with the Rolling Stones, Elvis Costello, Annie Lennox and Paul Simon.

In 2012, he won a Grammy Award for best reggae album for Rebirth, which was produced by the punk band Rancid’s Tim Armstrong, as well as another Grammy in 1984 for Cliff Hanger.