Happy Birthday

Reggae legend Jimmy Cliff celebrates his 80th birthday

Reggae superstar Jimmy Cliff in his natural habitat: fully motivated on a live stage.

(Bild: CC-BY-SA)

Among the living reggae legends, Jimmy Cliff is right at the top. He shaped the scene with his songs, put Jamaica on the world pop music map and promoted the young Bob Marley. Cliff turns 80 today - and the "Krone" remembers two special encounters.

Reggae artists of the old school are sometimes accused of a lot of things. Racism, sexist tendencies and structural unrest are sometimes part of it. Bob Marley's musically impeccable reputation was posthumously tarnished by the life around him, which he would certainly have liked to have avoided. Less is known about reggae forefather Jimmy Cliff in this respect - except for the unrest. The author of these lines still remembers 2014 well. Back then, Lovely Days was still taking place in the strawberry metropolis of Wiesen and Cliff invited us to an interview before the gig on a warm July evening. From the legendary backstage rooms (which are the interiors of old steam trains) you could already hear shouting from outside, and a short time later the tour manager informed us that the show had been canceled at short notice. Cliff had just had an argument with his musicians and would not be able to give an interview now.

Homegrown
The performance shortly afterwards was confident and inspiring - three years late, the interview at Burg Clam finally worked out. A short but intense pleasure with a radiant personality, whose decades of musical history are auratically apparent. In 1962, Cliff hit the top of the Jamaican charts for the first time as a teenager with the song "Hurricane Hattie". His homeland was gaining independence from Great Britain and the song was inspired by the severe hurricane that hit the country in 1961. The term reggae didn't even exist back then and Jimmy Cliff's real name was James Chambers. He gave himself the stage name because he was inspired by the cliffs of his home in the northwest of the island.

Cliff was instrumental in the development of ska sounds into reggae, which was still unknown at the time. Legend (and Cliff himself) has it that in the 1970s he recognized a poet and future world star in the then welder Bob Marley, who turned up in his rehearsal room and with whom he recorded his very first three songs. Cliff himself was already established at this time. With songs such as "Vietnam" (the best protest song of all time according to Bob Dylan), "Many Rivers To Cross", "Wonderful World, Wonderful People" or his interpretation of the Cat Stevens world hit "Wild World", he conquered the charts across the globe. The Rastafarian doctrine is also important. "In life, there are the two poles of positivity and negativity," he told us in an interview in 2018, "reggae should always be in the positive area, that's very important. The negative is in all of us - you should just never let it take precedence."

Happiness and contentment
Like many Jamaican musicians, Cliff lived in London in the 1970s to further his career, but never really felt at ease. His landlady reportedly wanted to throw him out with racist messages, but it was only when she saw him live on the then popular TV show "Top Of The Pops" that she froze in horror and radically changed her mind. With "You Can Get It If You Really Want", he wrote one of the best-known and most successful reggae songs in music history. Throughout his life, he faithfully depicted the everyday life of black Jamaicans and mixed a heavy dose of social criticism and eye-opening moments into his sunny songs. "Everyone in this world has a purpose. Life is about doing what your soul tells you to do. It may not bring all of us the big bucks, but it brings happiness and satisfaction."

Following a religious path, Cliff first converted to Islam, only to later detach himself from all otherworldly thoughts, believe in science and develop a more universal view of life. "In the end, I only feel responsible to myself in this world. I want to live a good life on this earth - how I do that is entirely in my own hands." Over the course of his impressive career, Cliff succeeded several times as a self-taught actor, won two Grammys and was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2010. "I've certainly achieved a lot in my life, but there's still a lot to do," he says, still alert and motivated, "the best songs have not yet been written, the best albums have not yet been recorded and the best films have not yet been made. There's enough to do."

Unpredictable creative spurts
Cliff remains creative even in old age and only released his latest studio album "Refugees" in 2022, which unmistakably centers on the precarious refugee crisis that is causing global earthquakes. "I'm always willing to learn and experience new things. As soon as you stop learning and taking an interest in things, you die inside. Life gives you enough opportunities to keep developing - but you also have to be interested and grab them." Live performances have become rarer, and not just because of Cliff's health, but you never know with the Jamaican reggae forefather. As unpredictable as his moods are, his creative spurts are just as unpredictable. "My songs primarily reflect beautiful moments. But sometimes also moments when I had to fight for things. In the end, I follow the soul and try to come as close as possible to completing my destiny."