Reggae lovers pay glowing tributes to legendary Jimmy Cliff

Ja­maican reg­gae lovers and artistes in the New York Met­ro­pol­i­tan Area are pay­ing glow­ing trib­utes to leg­endary Ja­maican singer, song­writer and ac­tor Jim­my Cliff, who died on Mon­day at the age of 81 years.

Cliff, who has been cred­it­ed with in­tro­duc­ing reg­gae to an in­ter­na­tion­al au­di­ence, pri­mar­i­ly through his per­for­mance in the land­mark film, “The Hard­er They Come” (1972).

“There will for­ev­er be a part of Jim­my that will res­onate and re­main with my fam­i­ly for time to come,” Ja­maican-born, New York-based at­tor­ney Mer­rick J. Dammar told the Caribbean Me­dia Cor­po­ra­tion (CMC).

As the god­fa­ther of my son Markhus, Jim­my was the first en­ter­tain­er that per­formed at my prop­er­ty lo­cat­ed at Emandee acres, set­ting the stan­dard un­der which we of­fer qual­i­ty en­ter­tain­ment for free.

“I am proud to be the own­er of Jim­my’s first gui­tar. As he pre­sent­ed it to me he stat­ed, ‘Bob Mar­ley’s gui­tar is with him. Mine is with you, Take good care of her. She made me fa­mous’.

“Rest my broth­er; you have crossed your last riv­er, leav­ing us with the re­minder that we live in a ‘Won­der­ful World’ with ‘Beau­ti­ful Peo­ple’”, he said, re­fer­ring to one of Cliff’s biggest hits, “Won­der­ful World, Beau­ti­ful Peo­ple.”

Reg­gae singer, Richie Stephens said Cliff was “not just an artist, he was a na­tion­al trea­sure and an icon.

“Jim­my is some­one who taught us about the busi­ness of mu­sic, both how to per­form on stage and how to con­duct our­selves. Jim­my Cliff was a pi­o­neer, some­body that we tru­ly loved and ad­mired through­out the years,” he told CMC.

“It’s such a sad day for Ja­maica, for the en­tire reg­gae in­dus­try to know he’s no longer with us,” Stephens added. “Reg­gae mu­sic has cer­tain­ly lost one of our great­est ever. Jim­my is gone but will nev­er be for­got­ten. RIP (rest in peace).”

Ja­maican-born, New York-based en­ter­tain­ment pro­mot­er An­tho­ny “ER Gu­ru” Turn­er, said he has “known the songs of singer, ac­tor, hu­man­i­tar­i­an Jim­my Cliff all my life.

“I re­mem­ber hear­ing songs like ‘Hard­er They Come’, ‘Many Rivers To Cross’ and ‘You Can Get It If You Re­al­ly Want. These songs were the sound­track not just to the movie ‘Hard They Come’ but the lives of many Ja­maicans who loved and cher­ished his songs,” Turn­er added.

He re­called work­ing with Cliff in 2010, when he be­came the sec­ond Ja­maican reg­gae recorder to be in­duct­ed in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

“What a life chang­ing mo­ment that was to have shared space with him when I put to­geth­er a press jun­ket to hon­or Jim­my’s ac­com­plish­ments for over 30 Ja­maican/Caribbean me­dia in Man­hat­tan,” Turn­er said. “I had the rare op­por­tu­ni­ty to touch and hold his Rock & Roll Hall of Fame tro­phy. This is a mo­ment I will nev­er for­get.”

In 2012, Turn­er said he al­so had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to work with CLIFF again at the Groovin In The Park in Ja­maica, Queens, New York, where he head­lined the fes­ti­val with Glady Knight, Boyz To Men, Beres Ham­mond and Bee­nie­man.

“Jim­my was the con­sum­mate per­former who knew how to en­gage and en­ter­tain fans,” said Turn­er, not­ing that Cliff was con­ferred with the Or­der of Mer­it, Ja­maica’s fourth-high­est na­tion­al hon­or in 2003 by the Gov­ern­ment of Ja­maica. “Walk good my friend. RIP.”

Ja­maican-born, New York-based mu­si­col­o­gist Win­ston “Stan” Smith said, “Jim­my Cliff’s lega­cy is se­cure.

“Like brand Ja­maica, his mu­si­cal ac­com­plish­ments punched above his weight. The world knew and loved the rich ta­pes­try of Ska, Rock Steady and Reg­gae be­cause of Jim­my Cliff.”

Cliff’s bi­og­ra­phy on his of­fi­cial web­site says: “As many leg­ends through­out his­to­ry do, the whole sto­ry starts dur­ing a dev­as­tat­ing storm. We open on the Somer­ton Dis­trict of St. James, Ja­maica. With on­ly one mid­wife tend­ing to the en­tire vil­lage, a moth­er gives birth to a child, wraps him in a sheet, and takes him to shel­ter at a neigh­bour’s home as the hur­ri­cane blows her house away.

“How­ev­er, every­body agrees, ‘There’s some­thing spe­cial about this boy. He be­comes fa­mous by the age of 14 for a hit co­in­ci­den­tal­ly en­ti­tled ‘Hur­ri­cane Hat­tie.’ He goes on to pop­u­lar­ize reg­gae mu­sic every­where. He changes the world. Near­ly 70 years lat­er, he doesn’t stop. This is the sto­ry of Jim­my Cliff.