Jimmy Cliff, who has died aged 81, was a singer, songwriter and actor whose work opened up the music and culture of Jamaica to an international audience.
Blazing a trail for Bob Marley, Cliff enjoyed a string of hits in the early 1970s that combined his unusually pure singing voice with a lilting reggae rhythm. But his real breakthrough came when he starred as the gun-toting, drug-dealing rude boy in the low budget blockbuster The Harder They Come (1972).
A brutal depiction of life in the Jamaican capital, Kingston, the film followed the travails of an underdog musician adrift in a big city where corruption was endemic. The accompanying score established reggae in America and became a bestselling soundtrack album.
Although it included songs by accomplished performers such as Toots and the Maytals and Desmond Dekker, it was Cliff’s compositions “You Can Get it if You Really Want” (which became the Conservative Party’s anthem at their annual conference in 2009), the hymn-like “Many Rivers To Cross,” as well as the title track, that particularly stood out.
Absolutely killer soundtrack album; Cliff would go on to appear as a musical guest on the first season of Saturday Night Live (with Dick Cavett as the show’s host), and co-star in the 1985 Harold Ramis-directed movie Club Paradise, alongside Robin Williams, Peter O’Tooole and Rick Moranis.