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This video traces the incredible life and journey of Reggae's 1st king in the great James Chambers aka Jimmy Cliff. A figure regarded as one of the greatest icons in world music
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00:00It's with great sadness that I must announce the passing of a legend of reggae music in
00:09the great James Chambers aka Jimmy Cliff who went to meet Ja at the age of 81 after a battle
00:15with pneumonia as announced by his family this morning the 24th of November, 2025.
00:21This man's impact on Jamaican and world music is staggering as he was indeed the first king
00:26of reggae music.
00:27Let's pay a tribute to the titan that was Jimmy Cliff.
00:31If you asked a room full of people who they thought was the king of reggae music you would
00:35undoubtedly get Bob Marley as the unanimous response.
00:39But before Bob there had already been a larger than life artist and shining star of the reggae
00:43genre.
00:44The multi-instrumentalists who had drawn from the same reggae DNA as the Wailers who had
00:49been the single most powerful factor in bringing the art form to worldwide prominence.
00:53This person was the incredible Jimmy Cliff.
00:56Before the Wailers had even achieved their domestic breakthrough at Studio One, Jimmy Cliff had
01:00not only conquered the Jamaican market but was the arrowhead of the move that first took
01:05it international and laid the foundations for the music to truly go global all before the
01:10age of 16.
01:11Jimmy Cliff is so intertwined in the development of the genre that many reggae commentators humorously
01:17divides reggae history like the western calendar is divided before Cliff BC and after Cliff AC.
01:25While his peers were still thinking about topics of a light nature like love and partying in
01:30the 1960s, Cliff was already crying out in his music about the plight of the disenfranchised
01:35in society in songs like many rivers to cross and encouraging tunes for the masses you can
01:40get it if you really want.
01:42This is amazing when you consider that this was before rich reggae would develop and adopt
01:46such themes as its central core.
01:49Cliff not only brought the culture into the global stratosphere in an audio sense but at
01:53the start of the 1970s, will star in a movie that is credited with truly introducing the world
01:58to the vibrant and colorful imagery of urban Jamaica and paved the way for reggae music
02:03to become the juggernaut that it became in the 1970s.
02:06On top of that, Cliff is credited with being the person that first discovered Bob Marley
02:10and as we will see in this video, he is the one whose actions paved the way for the tough
02:14gong to assume megastar status.
02:16Let's take a look at the amazing story of Jimmy Cliff, the first king of reggae music.
02:22He was born ordinary James Chambers, the last of seven kids.
02:26On the 30th of July 1944, in the little village of Somerton in the St. James Parish of Jamaica,
02:33his parents broke up while he was still an infant and was raised by a deeply religious
02:37tailor-farmer dad.
02:39The village he grew up in didn't have electricity in those times, so his only exposure to music
02:44was from local mental bands and hymns he sang in church, and it was in church that he would
02:49discover his immense talent.
02:51His father had noticed that he had a marvelous singing voice, so at the age of 6, he got
02:56young James to sing in church.
02:58His performances were so brilliant that the number of parishioners in that church would
03:02always swell, with people flocking to that parish just to hear the kids sing.
03:05And as the 1950s were ending, Somerton village would get electricity and his father bought
03:10a transistor radio, through which young Jimmy began to catch broadcasts from a New Orleans
03:15radio station named W.I.N.Z every night.
03:19He discovered American R&B artists like Sam Cooke, Ray Charles and Fat Domino.
03:24It was these acts that made him choose the life path of a musician.
03:28After completing his sixth grade in Somerton, his father would send him to Kingston to enroll
03:32at the Kingston Technical School to learn the trade.
03:35But Jimmy's real mission was to break into the music business.
03:38He moved in with his aunt and uncle in their one-room shack in the rugged ghetto of Denham,
03:43not too far from Trenchtown.
03:45He would walk long distances to school every day, and his route took him through the bustling
03:49Orange Street, which was popularly called Beach Street, because of the large number of recording
03:54studios and record stores.
03:56Seeing plenty of aspiring artists hanging outside these studios inspired this youngster
04:01to keep his dreams alive.
04:02He hustled hard to find a producer that would record him and didn't get any headway.
04:06And after a while, he joined some other youths who were getting musical lessons from an established
04:11but young Trenchtown-based musician named Joe Higgs, who also trained other eventual greats
04:16like the Wailers, Judy Mowat and the Wailing Souls.
04:20He tried his luck in a number of talent contests and eventually won the first prize at the Viajohns
04:25Opportunity Hour held at the Majestic Theatre in Kingston under the new stage name of Jimmy Cliff.
04:31He still wasn't getting anywhere in his quest, but all that was about to change.
04:36One evening in 1962, he was walking home from school and as usual walked through Orange Street
04:42pondering on how to get a breakthrough.
04:44As he walked past number 135 Orange Street, he saw a restaurant and record store named Beverly's
04:49and came up with the idea of writing a song called Beverly's which he could sell to the
04:53owners of their establishment and hopefully get some quick cash.
04:57It took him 10 minutes to write the song Beverly's and muscled his way in past the front desk
05:01to meet the owners.
05:02His drive paid off and he came face to face with the owners who were three brothers called
05:07the Kongs.
05:08They weren't really interested but allowed the young boy to sing anyway.
05:11Two of the Kong brothers laughed at him and told him that they went in the record business.
05:16But one of them named Leslie was impressed and said that Jimmy had the best voice he'd
05:20ever heard in Jamaica.
05:22That encounter convinced Leslie Kong to go into the record business.
05:26He took Jimmy to Federal Records and recorded three songs which were Dearest Beverly, Hurricane
05:31Hattie and Miss Jamaica.
05:33It would be Hurricane Hattie which was inspired by a real-life hurricane that hit the Caribbean
05:37a year before that would become his breakout single as it rocketed to number 1 on the Jamaican
05:42charts.
05:43During that period, Jimmy went to visit his friend named Desmond Decker, a then-upcoming
05:47singer who was also a Beverly's recording artist but had a day job as a welder and he
05:52went to check on Desmond at the welding workshop where he worked.
05:56Desmond's co-worker was a young boy from Trenchtown who was also an aspiring musician
06:00named Bob Marley but better known as Robbie.
06:03Bob Marley would get into a conversation with Jimmy Cliff and told him that he was interested
06:07in trying his hands in the music business and he would invite Bob to the studio.
06:12So when Bob showed up and auditioned for Cliff, Jimmy was so impressed that he convinced
06:16Kong to grant Bob some studio time and opened the door for Bob Marley to record his first
06:20ever single titled One Cup of Coffee.
06:23Despite his father's objection, Jimmy Cliff dropped out of school to go into music full
06:27time and went on to record a number of smash hit singles on Leslie Kong's Beverly's
06:32Label over a two-year period.
06:34He was now a bona fide Jamaican music star and was so outstanding that he was selected by
06:38the Minister of Social Welfare to be part of a Jamaican delegation representing the country
06:43at the 1964 World Fair in New York.
06:47Cliff put in a splendid performance at that festival that got wonderful reviews in the
06:50press and caught the eye of a young British Jamaican music executive named Chris Blackwell
06:55who approached him and offered him a record deal.
06:58Jimmy's awesome performance attracted many record companies but he would choose Island
07:02Records because Blackwell was Jamaican.
07:05Blackwell flew him to London in 1965 and began to work on the product.
07:10Interestingly Island Records tried to package Jimmy Cliff like a rock star, something like
07:14a British version of Jimi Hendrix but it didn't work and when his debut album Hard
07:19Road to Travel was released in 1967 it failed to blow up leaving him really frustrated.
07:24But he would get a lift from a successful tour of Brazil and he returned to Jamaica in 1969
07:30after almost 4 years away and reunited once again with his mentor and friend Leslie Kong.
07:36Inspired at this reunion, his painful experiences of the past and just being back in Jamaica he
07:41poured all his creative energy into the music for his next album which was titled Jimmy Cliff and released the same year.
07:48It was his breakthrough album, a simply superb and classic compilation that contained some of
07:53his most incredible hits like Many Rivers to Cross, Vietnam and Wonderful World, Beautiful People.
07:59This album is what really took reggae to a whole new audience with US rock stars like Bob Dylan lavishing
08:05accolades all over the work. The album also inspired Paul Simon to go to Jamaica to record his music.
08:11Cliff's next album, Goodbye Yesterday was also another absolute classic that was a critical and commercial smash.
08:18It contained songs like Wild World, a remake of the Cat Stevens classic and Cliff's version,
08:23reached number 8 on the UK charts and stayed there for a whopping 3 months as well as the inspirational
08:29masterpiece, you can get it if you really want. But for the next album, 1971's Another Psycho,
08:35Island Records decision to infuse a more rock sounding and less reggae feel affected its success and despite
08:42having classics like Sitting in Limbo, it was heavily criticized by reggae purists for selling out.
08:47But despite this setback, Cliff's status in the reggae pantheon rose to a whole new level when movie
08:52director Perry Henzo, who was working on making an updated tale of the true story of a Jamaican gangster
08:58from the 1940s, stumbled on the cover of Cliff's self-titled album Jimmy Cliff and once he saw the
09:04photograph, he immediately knew that Cliff was the man to take the starring role. The movie titled
09:09The Harder They Come, starred Jimmy Cliff as Ivan, a youth from the countryside who moves to the city
09:14to find a better life for himself as well as break into the music business. But when he's exploited and
09:19left badly frustrated by the mafia nature of the music industry, he goes into a life of crime and
09:25become Jamaica's most wanted gangster. The movie came out in 1972 and became an instant classic,
09:30winning several prizes at European film festivals. Its screenings around the globe not only showed the
09:36world the vibrant and vivid imagery of Jamaica but its soundtrack comprised mostly of some of
09:41Cliff's most incredible songs truly led global audiences to fall in love with reggae music.
09:46But behind the scenes, all was not well between Cliff and Chris Blackwell. He had grown frustrated with
09:52the slow pace of his career growth at Island Records and wanted out. Blackwell begged him to stay,
09:58saying he would give him a brand new contract and was putting a plan together that would make him a
10:02megastar and legend. But by then there were plenty of other record labels begging Jimmy Cliff to come
10:08and sign up with them. So eventually Jimmy took a $50,000 deal from EMI and left. And as fate would have it,
10:15a week later Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Bonnie Whaler walked into Blackwell's Island Records office and held
10:21discussions that led to the deal being made for the recording of the Catchafire album. It said that
10:26Blackwell transferred all its energy and focus to this new project and implemented the promotional
10:31tour plan meant for Jimmy in favor of the Whalers and it made them a groundbreaking success by the
10:36release of the second album Burning which came out in 1973. Jimmy Cliff opened his account at EMI with
10:43the powerful unlimited album and the superb House of Exile in 1974 which was not only a strong worldwide
10:50success but became a smash hit in Africa especially Nigeria where he performed in packed show venues
10:56all over the country. House of Exile featured a song named The No.1 Ripoff Man which was a diss track
11:01aimed at Chris Blackwell. He would show heavy presence on the motherland and famously played a massive
11:07concert in Soweto, South Africa at the peak of apartheid to a mixed-race audience. That concert was
11:12attended by a teenage singer named Lucky Dubé and it inspired him to become a reggae artist and eventually
11:18became the biggest reggae star to emerge from South Africa. Jimmy Cliff kept up his prolific output of
11:24albums into the 1980s and won his first Grammy for best reggae recording in 1986 for its album
11:30Cliffhanger that has one of my favorite Jimmy Cliff songs Hotshot. By the 1990s his output had slowed but
11:37he would force his way back into the charts with two massive soundtrack hits. The first was his 1993 remake
11:43of Johnny Nash's I Can See Clearly Now for the movie Cool Runnings and for the 1995 performance of Hakuna
11:50Matata from Disney's Lion King. This stunning comeback sparked renewed interest for many record labels
11:56including would you guess Island Records and he would sign for Island Records again and release the
12:01album Higher and Higher in 1996. For all Jimmy's amazing success he received plenty of criticism for his
12:07genre-bending approach to music after putting out 1971's Goodbye Yesterday which was his last pure
12:14reggae album. So in 2012 he appeased his reggae purist fans with the album titled Rebirth, a 13 track
12:20compilation that took old fans down memory lane. The album Rebirth also banked the grammy award for best
12:26reggae album and he would stay fairly busy over the next few years doing what he did best in live shows
12:32every now and then meaning that he had been doing it at the highest level for seven decades since he
12:37forced his way into Beverly that night and up into the pantheon as not just the original king of reggae
12:42music but as one of the greatest artists in world music history. And not much was heard about this great
12:48man until the sad news came in this morning about his sudden passing after a brief illness. We're truly
12:54blessed to have witnessed Jimmy Cliff's genius in her lifetime. It's really heartbreaking as yet another
12:59legend goes home to meet Ja but such they say is life. And may his wonderful soul rest in perfect peace.
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