Reggae singer Jimmy Cliff at Island Records studios, London, 1971. SHEPARD SHERBELL/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES
Jamaican music legend Jimmy Cliff died on Monday, November 24, at the age of 81, following an epileptic seizure and pneumonia, his wife announced. Before Bob Marley, he helped popularize reggae outside Jamaica with his early hits, "Many Rivers to Cross" in 1969 (later covered by Joe Cocker, among others), and "The Harder They Come" in 1972, which was both a song and the title of a film by Perry Henzell, in which Cliff played the lead role. This made him the first international reggae star. With "Reggae Night" (1983), he maintained his status, though he was somewhat overshadowed in the 1970s by the rise of Marley, who, unlike Cliff with his 34 albums, had a brief but meteoric career before his death from cancer in May 1981.
Yet it was Cliff who enabled Marley to record two of his first solo songs, "Judge Not" and "One Cup of Coffee," by introducing him to his producer, Leslie Kong, an ice cream vendor who named his small label after his shop: Beverley's. Interviewed in 2012 during the promotion of his 33rd album, Rebirth – which earned him his second Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album – Cliff expressed his bitterness and jealousy toward Marley and his band, The Wailers: "The first time I recorded a record," the then 68-year-old singer recalled, "I was given 1 shilling [€0.40 cents today]. The Wailers were luckier than me at Studio One: They got 2 pounds a week [€50]. I only got 1 shilling, and they would wave me away: 'There you go, schoolboy, go catch your bus.' Then I met the producer Leslie Kong. He was very fair, so I stayed with him. I think that's why I avoided a lot of swindlers, unlike some of my colleagues." A true friend, Cliff also helped other street kids who, like him, had come from the countryside to try their luck in Kingston.
