There Has Never Been A Thread About Jimmy Cliff

OTM. "Sitting in Limbo" is a beautiful song, but "Pressure Drop"? Fucking towering. I wonder if half of why Cliff is so well remembered is because of what's next to his songs on that soundtrack.

See also, the newly expanded 2-disc Deluxe Edition of THTC.

Last year Hip-O Select released a collector's edition item called Better Days Are Coming: The A&M Years 1969-1971. This $75 four disc set apparently includes the missing albums I'd been searching for. Because of the price tag, I've hesitated in getting it for quite a while. Has anyone heard it?

So on a whim, I bought Jimmy Cliff's Struggling Man. The little I've read about it implies that it was considered a disappointment. But I like it, at least the first half of it (the side with songs written by Cliff). The clean horn sounds are great. And, despite the upbeat arrangements, the album sounds . . . sad, somehow. Like Cliff is bravely trying to be optimistic, but a desperate sadness keeps seeping out of his voice and these songs.

All of this has been a revelation to me. I've never given these genres a chance before. If Struggling Man is a low point in the reggae/roots cannon (if Cliff's songs are properly classified as roots music), the best stuff in these genres must be mind-blowing.

But the lightweight Robin Williams vehicle Club Paradise, which costars Mr. Cliff, is a vastly superior viewing experience and a much more coherent movie than The Harder They Come.

I don't understand the appeal of this movie. The plot is incoherent and jerkily paced, the dialogue sounds like it's underwater at best, and there's no even remotely likable character.

His character in THTC (based on a historical person) has nothing to recommend him; he pretty much does nothing but take from people. If he'd been a crusader for some kind of justice or principle, or a dashing Robin Hood, I can understand him becoming a popular hero or antihero: as it is he just starts shooting people for no good reason. There's some fantastic music in it but for that, I can just get the soundtrack. The movie was a waste of time.

the vocal on "The Harder They Come" is one of the greatest vocal takes ever committed to tape, it just never loses even a little strength

I shook his hand in Chico, CA when I was 13. Awesomeness...

dude is way Classic. THTC OST is one of my favorites. And yeah, the album cover is spectacular, the movie less so.

WHA??!?! THE MOVIE IS GREAT!

I shook his hand in Chico, CA when I was 13. Awesomeness...

That is so awesome. A couple of years ago I was in a recording studio where there were two functioning studio rooms and the band in the B room was a reggae act who'd hired Horsemouth Wallace as their drummer for the session. Talking to Horsemouth was like talking to Zelig or something: "You played with Dennis Brown?" "Oh yeah, man, I was so sad when he died."

Also, watching dude hold down the coldest 4/4 in the world for a straight hour while the engineers got tones was like holy shit.

the vocal on "The Harder They Come" is one of the greatest vocal takes ever committed to tape, it just never loses even a little strength.

OTM. And seeing Jimmy Cliff sing it in The Harder They Come makes his vocals seem even stronger. I don't know why, but I had a totally different idea of what the movie was about. I saw it for the first time this past week and -- wow -- totally different and great. Cliff looks fierce, and he was surprisingly convincing (as a singer turned actor).

I guess this is for a different thread, but I saw in the DVD extras that the director's next movie came out in 2006. Thirty years between projects? What's up with that?

RFI:

http://images.emusic.com/music/images/album/288/122/152/12215203/300x300.jpg

I downloaded a version of "Many Rivers to Cross" off this on emusic, which I'm not sure is a real s/t album or just a comp. It sounds very much like the version on The Harder They Come, but the mix is different and the vocal sounds better somehow - a little clearer and better pitched - although also thinner. Did he record it for another record? Is there another take floating around?

'Sitting in Limbo' was recorded at Muscle Shoals with the studio band! Same backing group as Aretha's 'never loved a man'...

RIP

https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2025/11/24/reggae-legend-jimmy-cliff-died/

The hero can't dead until the last reel!

RIP

Ah man. A big one.

Legend.

My first glimpse of him was in the forgotten 1986 comedy Club Paradise, playing Robin Williams' sidekick.

He might be the first and only artist that will ever be covered by both Springsteen and New Order.

Good point!

That Springsteen cover is incredible.

I seem to recall it making the nightly news back in the day

While on the European leg of The River Tour in Spring 1981, Springsteen purchased a cassette tape of Jimmy Cliff music in Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. He discovered "Trapped" on it and decided to incorporate it into his act, making an arrangement for the E Street Band that replaced the reggae rhythm with a straight rock one. He additionally substantially recast it as a slower, dirge-like piece framed by Roy Bittan's synthesizer punctuated by arena-style choruses.

Regarding Springsteen's version of the song, Cliff commented in 1988, "I look at it as a compliment. ... He's an artist in his own right and he's written a lot of good songs, too. It's good when an established artist does your work and does it in his way. I've also done other people's work. I recorded Cat Stevens' 'Wild World', a big hit in Europe, and I did it my way. From a commercial point of view, I didn't gain from ('Trapped'). All the royalties were donated to the cause and I gained in the moral sense that I have done something for the cause."

I have a theory that any song can be successfully reggae-fied, but this might be one of the few reggae songs to be successfully rock-ified.

I fear Bowie didn't take your advice in 1984.

Ha, had to google what he was up to that year. I should have said, successfully reggae-fied by a reggae artist!

Alfred, I was about to say something about Club Paradise and then looked back to see that I had said exactly what I wanted to say, 19 years ago.

RIP

Listening to The Harder They Come soundtrack right now.

No idea why, but my dad - despite mostly being interested in Sinatra and Gilbert and Sullivan - loved that soundtrack, so I grew up with it. Been a part of my life for as long as I can remember!

Jimmy Cliff was very popular with white boomers! I think for a lot of Americans that soundtrack was the first real reggae they'd heard, or at least the first reggae album. The main reggae I grew up with was a few Jimmy Cliff albums and UB40. My dad did buy the Marley Legend collection when it came out, but that wasn't until the mid-'80s.

Yeah, sounds about right! It's intriguing to me that "Many Rivers ..." isn't reggae at all. That and "Redemption Song" are the only two songs of that type, totally not reggae songs from prominent reggae artists, that I can think of, but there must be more.

Many fond memories of seeing my parents dance around to it.

Many Rivers is magnificent in the film. What a powerful performance. RIP Jimmy.

I think for a lot of Americans that soundtrack was the first real reggae they'd heard, or at least the first reggae album.

Not only that, Cliff had one of the first US Top 40 Reggae-Pop crossover hits in 1970, with "Wonderful World, Beautiful People", which charted shortly after "Israelites", "Double Barrel", and IIRC "Hold Me Tight".

Believe that soundtrack also got a Treasure Island listing from Greil Marcus in Stranded.

^^Yup! "The Rolling Stones would have killed to have made this record."

Or anyone, really. It's one of a relatively few perfect documents, as an album, of a scene, of a genre, etc.

I actually have a copy of the film's Blu-ray. I haven't explored it that much, but if I recall correctly, there's an entire second film on there as a bonus!

Yeah, sounds about right! It's intriguing to me that "Many Rivers ..." isn't reggae at all. That and "Redemption Song" are the only two songs of that type, totally not reggae songs from prominent reggae artists, that I can think of, but there must be more.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, November 24, 2025 10:43 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

probably a cliché but few artists could bring the soul out of reggae like jimmy. his little ad-libs on "you can get it if you really want" are temptations-level, and that horn bridge on the same song is pure stax.

a true legend, we'll never see the like of him again

RIP. I've somehow never heard Wonderful World, Beautiful People so I'm listening now, starts off fantastic!

On non-reggae songs by reggae artists: yeah usually the point is to reggae-fy other genres like Toots doing Louie Louie and Country Road on Funky Kingston. I feel like there are definitely other basically straight-up soul songs like Jimmy's from other artists but it's true that I'm blanking on anything obvious.

Things get complicated in the post-sleng teng era, where you get Lady Saw doing country songs and all kinds of other excursions, but Buju Banton has a few Redemption Song-like acoustic ballads that fit the bill in principle and spirit. Chronixx has a couple of non-reggae songs on his new album, including a Redemption-y ballad but also a gospel song.

Checking out his wiki page, I forgot that his biggest US hit was a cover of "I Can See Clearly Now" from the Cool Runnings soundtrack! It's a CVS Jam and still a Adult Contemporary staple, probably because the original is too old for AC playlists.

I would place that in the weird little rabbit hole that involves Johnny Nash, Bob Marley and The Cowsills.

He's had a long, fruitful career, but what's pretty astonishing is how much of his legacy rests on a lead role in a movie and four songs from said movie. This isn't some fluke aberration like most one-hit wonders though, this was something that had a profound impact on pop culture in terms of establishing reggae music in the mainstream. So even if most people know him only for the work surrounding that film, it's a testament to how big those achievements were.

Having said that, "Vietnam" will always be my favorite Jimmy Cliff record outside of The Harder They Come:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtqIblBeDXw

He's had a long, fruitful career, but what's pretty astonishing is how much of his legacy rests on a lead role in a movie and four songs from said movie. This isn't some fluke aberration like most one-hit wonders though, this was something that had a profound impact on pop culture in terms of establishing reggae music in the mainstream. So even if most people know him only for the work surrounding that film, it's a testament to how big those achievements were.

Not only did he directly help bring Reggae into the mainstream through the film & soundtrack, he indirectly led to it getting even bigger by switching labels right after its release, leading Chris Blackwell to redirect promotional energy from a planned Cliff media blitz to one focusing on Bob Marley & The Wailers.

Having said that, "Vietnam" will always be my favorite Jimmy Cliff record outside of _The Harder They Come_

He's had a long, fruitful career, but what's pretty astonishing is how much of his legacy rests on a lead role in a movie and four songs from said movie.

In the US you mean, he'd had two top 10 hits in the UK before the film was released.

... and Desmond Dekker's version of "You Can Make It If You Really Want" got to #2 in the UK charts

Austin Landmark:

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSHKgMDhsFTYnLF9-EbxawoyPf1DaIG2MVb7sOZIz69AQ&s=10

^^Used to be a Tower Records

Oh yeah

Near the Dobie Theater on the Drag.

Theatre even

Just found out he played Webster Hall back in 2013. (Videos and photos can be found online.) Really regret I missed that opportunity. It looks like he played mostly European festivals after that.

Yusuf Islam/Cat Stevens:

Jimmy Cliff was a powerful presence in my life - he always seemed to be there at crucial stages on my journey. We had success together in the early days with Wild World, we bumped into each other by strange and wonderful coincidence on pilgrimage in Mecca, and we also connected at the Mandela 46664 concert that marked my return to mainstream music. GOD BLESS HIM, his songs always had some message of peace - may he find it now and forever