Jimmy Cliff, Jamaican reggae music pioneer, dies at 81

The vocalist recorded much than 30 albums and won 2 Grammys during his six-decade career.

Jimmy Cliff, the charismatic reggae pioneer and histrion who preached joy, defiance and resilience successful his classics, has died astatine 81.

Cliff’s wife, Latifa Chambers, announced his decease connected societal media connected Monday, adding that the origin was a seizure followed by pneumonia.

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Born James Chambers connected July 30, 1944, during a hurricane successful St James Parish successful northwestern Jamaica, helium moved successful the 1950s from the household workplace to the country’s capital, Kingston, with his father, determined to win successful the euphony industry.

At 14, helium became nationally celebrated for the opus Hurricane Hattie, which helium wrote.

Cliff would spell connected to grounds much than 30 albums and execute each implicit the world, including successful Paris, Brazil and astatine the World’s Fair successful New York successful 1964.

The pursuing year, Chris Blackwell of Island Records, the shaper who launched Bob Marley and the Wailers, invited Cliff to enactment successful the United Kingdom with him.

Acting career

Cliff aboriginal went into acting, starring successful the 1972 classical movie The Harder They Come, directed by Perry Henzell. The movie has been credited with introducing an planetary assemblage to reggae music.

The movie portrayed the grittier aspects of Jamaican life, redefining the land arsenic much than a tourer playground of cocktails, beaches and waterfalls.

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

American people creator Bob Dylan has called Cliff’s Vietnam the champion protestation opus ever written.

The antiestablishment bent of Cliff’s euphony gave a dependable not lone to the hardships faced by Jamaicans but besides to the tone and joyousness that persevered successful spite of poorness and oppression.

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

In 2012, helium won a Grammy Award for champion reggae medium for Rebirth, which was produced by the punk set Rancid’s Tim Armstrong, arsenic good arsenic different Grammy successful 1984 for Cliff Hanger.