With Your Hands On Your Head—Or On The Trigger Of Your Gun?
If there were a proper Reggae Hall of Fame, Jimmy Cliff would be amongst the first inductees. As it is, he’s a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer who’s inspired everybody from Bob Dylan to the Neville Brothers. Now in his 60s, the man who auditioned Bob Marley for Leslie Kong and went on to portray Ivan, the original StarBwoy, in Perry Henzel’s film The Harder They Come still has a few tricks left up his sleeve. On Cliff’s new EP, Sacred Fire, he linked up with Rancid’s Tim Armstrong to remake a classic by The Clash in a stripped-down acoustic stylee. In an eerily appropriate twist of fate, the late Joe Strummer sings lyrics that are replete with references to Jimmy Cliff’s cinematic debut. (more…)