Jimmy Cliff
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Jimmy Cliff

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“I’ve been listening to a variety of different reggae artists. I love Queen Ifrica, I like I-Octane and there’s this new youth coming up in Jamaica that I really like. I like the Adele album too. I listened to her album before this one and I listened to this one. I like her songwriting and the way she puts across her things. And yes, I like Taylor Swift. She’s a good writer, you know. She writes songs that are true to her and it comes across. That’s what it’s about.”

Cliff knows something about coming across. The reigning king of reggae – second only to Bob Marley in the history of the genre – he has written and performed a healthy number of classic hits in his lifetime. In the ‘60s and ‘70s, he brought us Wonderful World Beautiful People, Many Rivers To Cross, the popping joy of You Can Get It If You Really Want and a gentle cover of Cat Steven’s Wild World that is every bit as famous as the original. Later, in the ‘90s, he recorded Johnny’s Nash’s I Can See Clearly Now, which featured on the Cool Runnings soundtrack and put the journeyman artist back on the Billboard Top 20.

Much of Cliff’s early work, and early reggae generally, focused on political and social upheaval in Jamaica that seems long distant now, just as the Western counter-culture that tapped into reggae in the late ‘60s has become a quaint memory. But for Cliff, life is an ongoing struggle between negative and positive forces – an ongoing fight for peace and justice in the world.

“The world has changed a lot socially and politically. Today, we see a lot of the political systems breaking down, the economic systems breaking down, the religious systems breaking down. For instance, who ever thought that a pope would resign? I for one never knew that they could resign! When we see things like this happening, it’s a lot of change, a lot of big, big change, 360 degrees change,” he says.

Some of his more recent work was inspired by tours through Africa, where widespread poverty and political disenfranchisement have stirred the artist to write. Otherwise, Cliff’s muse is still the general vibe of daily living.

“Just living my life and seeing what’s going on in the world is enough to get me going, you know; the echoes of the people. I am still attached to the social life of the world and those things still interest me. I think an artist is still an artist as long as the breath is breathing.”

And this particular artist still has a lot of work to do. Cliff has released more than two dozen albums and written literally hundreds of songs over the course of his career. He starred in the film, The Harder They Come, which introduced reggae to an international audience in 1972. He has toured the world countless times and in 2010 was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame, but as far as Jimmy is concerned, his best work is still ahead of him.

“I am grateful that I have accomplished something that I set out to do. I have not accomplished all that I set out to do but it’s a part of it and I’m still on my way. I want to make more movies and bigger movies! I want to win an Oscar! I want to make more hit records, more number ones. I have my greatest songs still inside of me to write. I take encouragement from what I’ve done, for what I have to do,” he says.

For an artist of Cliff’s vintage, just withstanding the passage of time is commendable. The advent of computer technology has radically changed the music industry landscape, and not always for the better.

“Technology has changed our lives a lot. In my business, we see a generation where people can just go and download my music without having to buy it or anything like that, so it’s a lot of change in my personal life because that’s my livelihood,” he says. “The way people make music has also changed. Back in the day we went into the studio with six or seven musicians to record a song, but nowadays you can go into the studio with one person on a computer and you can get everything you need from that computer. It’s almost like everybody is under the same sound, you know? The creativity is not so flowing, coming from the individual, technology is providing the sound. You can create, but only from the sounds they give you. It’s not always such a great thing.”

Cliff dabbled with electronic production on his 2004 album, Black Magic, but when he went back into the studio to record 2012’s Rebirth, it was strictly back to basics. Producer Tim Armstrong of ‘90s punk acts Rancid and Operation Ivy assembled a studio band dubbed ‘The Engine Room’ (bassist/percussionist J Bonner, drum/percussionist Scott Abels, organ/percussionist Dan Boer and piano/lead guitarist Kevin Bivona) to help Cliff find a classic reggae sound.

“Tim played me some tracks when I went into the studio and the sound was amazing to me – he knew how to get those sounds that we used back then. ‘Wow,’ I thought, ‘How can you do that?’ It all just moved from there.”

The highly successful collaboration, which went on to win a Grammy award for Best Reggae Album, features a delight for both Jimmy Cliff and Tim Armstrong fans – a cover of Rancid’s 1995 hit Ruby Soho, reworked in a sweet-fitting reggae style.

“It one of the tracks that they played to me in the studio and I didn’t even know that it was a Rancid song,” Cliff smiles. “It sounded like a good song to me. The melody, with the reggae sound from back then, I just thought, ‘This is good!’ I just put my voice on it and it turned out great.”

Cliff’s career is littered with collaborations – he’s worked with many of music’s leading lights, from Elvis Costello to Annie Lennox to Sting and Joe Strummer – but don’t expect him to seek out a recording partner next time around.

“In this day and time, it has become like a fad to do collaborations. I don’t have anyone in mind, I prefer it to just happen how it happens, when we are feeling each other and then it works out. If it happens that way, I like it,” he says.

Life is full of possibilities for the 64-year-old artist, who is basking in his recent Grammy success and has been touring regularly for the last few years.

“There’s a thing is physics that says a body at rest stays at rest. A body in motion stays in motion. I stay in motion!” he grins, “And that’s how I’m going to stay.”

BY SIMONE UBALDI