Jimmy Cliff Was a Sunrise With Scars

A sunrise with scars. 

Whenever I think of Jimmy Cliff, I think of that voice. It was sonically clear and tight like acoustic guitar note, allowed to sustain and project out with a force of a PA system cutting through the mayhem of a street festival. 

It was a voice that came from taking a deep inhale of air, filling the whole upper body, from stomach to chest, with the limit line being the start of the throat, then setting the tone to blast by keeping enough emotional tension in the chest and using the vocal cords as a pressure valve of release and resistance. 

It was the sound of great capacity being met by controlled vocal dynamics. The sound of defiant optimism in the form of acoustic suspension. Rebellious consciousness as a self directed inner experience towards the world rather than a reaction to it. 

It was about what you are up against, instead of what is against you. Both can be the same thing, but that small change in orientation makes a big difference.

It’s obvious to look at his late 60’s and early 70’s output and say the “Harder They Come” encapsulates it best, along with the underrated “Struggling Man” LP. But it can be found throughout his discography and in his later work as well:

We are the true survivors, hanging on heaven′s door.
We are the true love carriers, we got a lot in store.
We pay the price, we make the way.
Now there is no delay.
Here we come like the phoenix, through the traps and the tricks.
Arrival. This is arrival.

- Jimmy Cliff, Arrival from “Cliff Hanger” (1989)

The After the Eclipse of Bob Marley

You can’t talk about Jimmy Cliff without talking about Bob Marley. I paused before getting into this part since I want to focus on Cliff, but I thought about it more and realize the differentiation of the two men helps us appreciate Cliff with more clarity.

Jimmy Cliff was Bob Marley before Bob Marley. “Many Rivers to Cross” was “No Woman, No Cry” before “No Woman, No Cry” became the all-time reggae ballad anthem. There certainly would have been no “I Shot the Sheriff” without “The Harder They Come”. And you can bet with certainty, the music Bob Marley wouldn’t exist as we know it without Jimmy Cliff finding him, then introducing him to reggae producer Leslie Kong.

With that being said, Bob Marley eclipsed Jimmy Cliff as the 1970’s went on. Whereas Chris Blackwell at Island Records didn’t have a clue on how to market Jimmy Cliff, he told Cliff not to live in America because it was too competitive a market. Blackwell figured it out years later with Bob Marley. Give that Reggae sound a more 70’s rock assemble vibe in appearance and have The Wailers storm as many US college campuses as possible.

In marketing, people obsess about “First Mover”, often times the first mover never makes it though and the “first exploiter” is the one who does. Being the first mover didn’t help Jimmy Cliff, but it benefited Bob Marley who was working with people who learned from where they failed with Cliff.

That aside, the thing I really wanted to focus on is lifespan. Marley (born in 1945) and Cliff (born in 1944) were about the same age. Marley died back in 1981 at 36 years old. Cliff had double the lifespan that Marley had in the same way Paul McCartney’s life would make up two John Lennon lifetimes. Wrap your head around that for a second. 

As ambitious as Cliff was, he seemed ok with Marley eclipsing him. When Marley died, Cliff didn’t try to take back the throne. To start, Cliff from his first recordings in the early 1960’s to his last album in the 2020’s was musically curious and eclectic. He wasn’t just reggae. Listen to the song “Fundamental Reggay” from the 1960’s and you find his Reggae was complex from the very moment of the genre’s inception. He never stopped exploring and mixing influences into his reggae sound.

To put it plainly: You know what you are going to get sonically with a Bob Marley song. It’s doesn’t get more consistent. As for Jimmy Cliff, be open to surprises.    

The Humanitarian. I come with my music.

After Marley, Cliff embraced the role of being a reggae ambassador instead of being a reggae king. But what he really chose to do with the second lifetime Bob Marley didn’t get was to be a humanitarian.

These lyrics shows Cliff’s deliberate choice to be a humanitarian above all else:

No matter where we are born, we are human beings.
The same chemistry.
With emotions, and feelings, all corresponding in love.
Compatible.
You can't get around it no matter how hard you try.
You better believe it.
And if you should find out that you are no different than I.
 
  - Jimmy Cliff, We All Are One from “The Power and the Glory” (1983) 

This was a man who knew his “Why”. 

The song was released roughly two years after Marley passed away. And if you listen to it, the song has more in common with Stevie Wonder early 80’s sound than it does with any reggae you’ve ever heard.

Jimmy Cliff never gave up the artist’s journey, which is to say he never gave up the human journey.

That is what made Cliff different. He was about what stood between the light and the suffering, the joy and the struggle, the hope and the weight of it all. 

He sang with a voice that declared love with a greater force than superpower countries declare war or hate. He wrote songs with a soul that transmuted life, peace, and a shared journey of being above all else.

As he once sang, he was a humanitarian who came with his music. The humanitarian may have left. The music he brought us remains.

But more importantly, if you and I decided today to be humanitarians in his vein, what would we choose to bring to the rest of humanity?