By Issy Ronald, NCS
(NCS) — (*81*) Cliff, the sleek-voiced singer who helped popularize the reggae genre, has died at age 81, his spouse introduced on Instagram on Monday.
“It’s with profound sadness that I share that my husband, Jimmy Cliff, has crossed over due to a seizure followed by pneumonia,” Latifa Chambers said.
“I am thankful for his family, friends, fellow artists and coworkers who have shared his journey with him. To all his fans around the world, please know that your support was his strength throughout his whole career. He really appreciated each and every fan for their love.”
With hits like “You Can Get It If You Really Want,” “The Harder They Come,” and “Wonderful World, Beautiful People,” Cliff reached worldwide success and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010, the one Jamaican other than Bob Marley to attain that honor.
As properly as his music, he was recognized for his starring position within the 1972 film “The Harder They Come,” during which he performs Ivan Martin, a younger man who strikes to the Jamaican capital, Kingston, to interrupt into the music trade however finally turns to crime as an alternative. That film and its soundtrack, for which Cliff wrote a number of songs, helped popularize reggae within the United States and made Cliff a star.
Cliff’s personal story bears some similarities to Martin’s. He was born James Chambers in 1944 in St. James Parish, western Jamaica, in the midst of a hurricane that destroyed his household dwelling. The second-youngest of eight kids, he grew up in poverty, singing in church and later taking the stage title (*81*) Cliff.
He moved to Kingston in 1961 and loved his first hit at simply 14, when his single “Hurricane Hattie” reached the highest of the Jamaican charts. He moved to London shortly afterward to advance his profession.
There, he recorded his first album, which included parts of R&B, earlier than returning to Jamaica. His work grew to become more and more in style. By 1970, he had three singles within the UK charts: “Wonderful World, Beautiful People,” “Vietnam” (which Bob Dylan known as the “best protest song ever written”) and a canopy of Cat Stevens’ “Wild World.”
He later labored with acts just like the Rolling Stones, Elvis Costello, Annie Lennox and Paul Simon, and recorded a monitor, “I Can See Clearly Now,” on the soundtrack of the 1993 film “Cool Runnings.”
Such was Cliff’s stature that Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness paid tribute to him on X after his loss of life, remembering him as a “true cultural giant whose music carried the heart of our nation to the world.”
Correction: An earlier model of this story misstated the yr of Cliff’s beginning.
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