With a legacy stretching back nearly 50 years, the Honourable Jimmy Cliff is still standing as one of the prime movers and continuing shapers of modern music. With a catalog that ranks among the most influential in global culture, Cliff remains a forceful voice of power and conscience, creating new music as vital and vibrant as ever. Teamed with producer Tim Armstrong — the Rancid front man who has cited Cliff as his most admired artist — Cliff is working on his first new album in seven years, a set which builds on his unparalleled history and points to a wide-open future.
The power and promise of the pairing jumps out from a five-song EP previewing the album. Together they bring fire to both compelling Cliff originals and a couple of pointedly chosen covers. The above-quoted “World is Spinning” and the steely “One More” show an artist as engaged with — and troubled by — the state of the world as much as he was when he made such landmark songs as “You Can Get It If You Really Want” and the title song of the movie The Harder They Come, both game-changers that will mark their 40th anniversary in 2012. A version of the Clash’s “The Guns of Brixton” taps into the popular uprisings for freedom in the Middle East, not to mention the recent London riots, which took place as sessions for the album were underway. Rancid’s affectionate portrait “Ruby Soho” brings the generations together, a full-circle journey of icon and acolytes. The two also teamed on a forceful interpretation of Bob Dylan’s generation-defining — and generation-crossing — “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall,” a featured track on the upcoming all-star Dylan tribute album benefiting Amnesty International.
It comes at a time in which Cliff’s legend has only grown, reaching new ears from many tastes and walks of life, with much more to come as the milestone anniversary for The Harder They Come is celebrated. Additionally, Paul Simon featured Cliff’s 1970 song “Vietnam” in his electrifying 2011 concerts. Simon introduced the song — which Dylan had called the greatest protest song ever written — as having inspired him to head to Jamaica and record “Mother and Child Reunion” with Cliff’s band. Cliff himself has in recent years revived and revised the song to address the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, bridging his past and present.
Jimmy Cliff and Wyclef at Cliff’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction
“I have great respect for what we did [in the past] and what other people have done,” says Cliff, the only living musician honored with Jamaica’s Order of Merit and a 2010 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee. “At the same time, I am always looking for the new.”
