Motley Moose – Archive

I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in “Cheers & Jeers”.  

OK, you’ve been warned – here is this week’s tomfoolery material that I posted.

ART NOTES – an exhibition of landscape etchings by the Italian-born Luigi Lucioni are at the Brooks Museum Of Art in Memphis, Tennessee through April 27th.

HAPPY 96th BIRTHDAY to the former Wisconsin governor Patrick Lucey … who was the VP candidate on the independent ticket in 1980 headed by John Anderson – who is also still alive at age 92 – and so both men are the longest-living Presidential candidate’s ticket in history.

THURSDAY’s CHILD is Oreo the Cat – swiped by two men from a Fort Collins, Colorado hotel. Mercifully, Oreo was located two days later … safe and sound.

HAIL and FAREWELL to veteran Indy 500 and USAC driver Gary Bettenhausen (at age 72) ….. drummer Joe Lala – who played in Stephen Stills’ “Manassas” and the Blues Image hit Ride, Captain Ride at age 66 ….. the surprise winner of the 1955 US Open golf title (defeating Ben Hogan in a playoff) Jack Fleck – who had been the oldest living U.S. Open champion – at age 92 …. and former Iran Contra prosecutor Lawrence Walsh who has died at the age of 102.

CHEERS that the English singer Kate Bush – who burst onto the music scene with her scintillating 1978 #1 in Britain Wuthering Heights – has announced her first concerts in thirty-five years.

SEPARATED at BIRTH – Illinois right-wing congressional candidate Susanne Atanus …. who may be the long-lost, evil sister of justice Elena Kagan of the US Supreme Court.

   

TV NOTES – Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger have enlisted Olivia Wilde amongst its cast for an upcoming HBO series – about a record company executive who is struggling to find the next new sound (as punk and disco begin to take over the music business in the 1970’s).

POLITICAL NOTES – this essay about Horst Seehofer, the head of the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU) – the powerful sister party (in Germany’s Bavarian region) to prime minister Angela Merkel’s national Christian Democratic Union (CDU) – notes that Seehofer must use his power wisely … concluding with, “So the CSU must make Mrs Merkel’s life difficult …. just not so difficult that she fails”.

FRIDAY’s CHILD is Athena the Cat – a New Mexico kitteh rescued from atop a utility pole after being stuck there for three days.

BRAIN TEASER – try this Quiz of the Week’s News from the BBC.

DEBAUCHERY CENTRAL – broadcast regulators in Canada have taken-to-task several adult-entertainment channels … but not on moral grounds. Instead, they have accused them of having inadequate Canadian content: leading pundits to muse ….. that they could move film production to Climax, Saskatchewan …. or cast a film entitled Hickey Night in Canada.

DIRECT DESCENDANTS? – former US president Franklin Pierce and Nick Jonas (of the “Jonas Brothers”).

   

…… and finally, for a song of the week ………………….. while he is not as famous as the late Bob Marley: reggae’s first international star (and its greatest living performer) would have to be Jimmy Cliff – whose fifty-year career has taken him around the world and has sung three reggae standards that audiences would recall. He was on the charts before Bob Marley yet to non-reggae audiences may be better known for his acting. Still, his life story parallels the spread of reggae to the wider world.

Born as James Chambers in St. James, Jamaica in 1948, he was a childhood performer at local shows. Moving to the capital city of Kingston at age fourteen, he adopted an ambitious stage name of Jimmy Cliff to signal the heights of the music world he was determined to climb. He was fortunate enough to be brought to the attention of music producer Leslie Kong (who oversaw Cliff’s career until his death in 1971) as Cliff released several singles in Jamaica. Jimmy Cliff was one of those chosen to represent Jamaica at the New York World’s Fair in 1964 (and I wonder if yours truly saw him, as a seven year-old)?

Within three years he was signed by the UK’s Island Records – whose owner Chris Blackwell had already stared the label moving away from purely Jamaican music into crossover pop – and he convinced Cliff to relocate to Britain to further his career. His 1968 debut album achieved some chart success and 1969’s Wonderful World, Beautiful People cracked the UK’s Top Ten – including the song Many Rivers to Cross – my favorite song of his.

The following year he performed a cover version of Wild World – with its composer Cat Stevens himself accompanying him on piano – and another pioneering Jamaican musician (Desmond Dekker) had a #2 hit recording of You Can Get It if You Really Want – one of Jimmy Cliff’s signature tunes.

In 1972 Jimmy Cliff had a starring role in the film The Harder They Come – one of the most internationally successful films to have been produced in Jamaica since independence – and the soundtrack album (and its title track especially) brought Jimmy Cliff’s music to a wider audience. By all rights, Jimmy Cliff should have been a household name in North America.

Inexplicably, the film was not released in the US until three years later. By that time the music industry had turned its attention to Bob Marley, whose band had the added aura of Rastafarian influences and references to ganja … neither of which were part of Jimmy Cliff’s lifestyle or music. Thus, he was overlooked by some.

Still, Jimmy Cliff had some well-received recordings and his 1972 song “Trapped” was later covered by Bruce Springsteen and in 1985 was included in the landmark We Are the World charity album. He expanded his repertoire to include an album of soul/pop (recorded at the noted studio of Muscle Shoals, Alabama) and his 1978 Give Thankx album included his popular Stand Up and Fight Back. He also had a well-received live album during this time.

In the 1980’s, he recorded two albums along with Kool & the Gang: the first of which received a Grammy nomination and its follow-up Cliff Hanger won that award. He also returned to acting with a role in the 1985 Robin Williams comedy Club Paradise set in the Caribbean. That same year he was one of the musicians on the protest song Sun City – against apartheid.

He reached the Top Twenty in 1993 with his cover of the Johnny Nash hit I Can See Clearly Now – as part of the soundtrack album for the film Cool Runnings (about the Jamaican Olympic bobsled team).

In this new century, he had something of a comeback album in 2004 with Black Magic – that featured duets with Sting, Wyclef Jean and the Clash guitarist Joe Strummer. At that time he released a deluxe re-issue of The Harder They Come as well as the two-disc Jimmy Cliff Anthology career retrospective. In more recent years he partnered with Rancid frontman Tim Anderson for two albums – with 2012’s Rebirth receiving a Grammy nomination.

Jimmy Cliff will turn age 66 on April 1st, begins a world tour starting in Japan in May (and will be at the Hollywood Bowl this July. He was awarded the Order of Merit by Jamaica’s government in 2003. He was also inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2010.

To show the inclusiveness of his music: his very popular song You Can Get It if You Really Want was used by two political campaigns: during the 1990 election campaign by the Sandanistas in Nicaragua and in 2007 in Britain by … hold on to your hats … by the Conservative Party (about which he said, “I’m from the lower class of society and I tend to support them rather than the upper class”).

Looking back on his career, Jimmy Cliff sums it up thusly:

My role has always been as the shepherd of reggae music. When they wanted to bring reggae to America, they sent Jimmy Cliff. When they wanted to bring reggae to England, they sent Jimmy Cliff. When they wanted to bring reggae to Africa, they sent Jimmy Cliff.

   

While Many Rivers to Cross is my favorite tune from him (which at this link you can hear) I’d like to feature two other of his songs.

His 1970 single Viet Nam – #6 in the UK and #25 in the US – was referred to at the time by Bob Dylan as the best protest song he had ever heard – and below you can hear it.

And perhaps his most fun tune … was a duet he sang with Elvis Costello – as part of the soundtrack to the 1986 film “Club Paradise” in which he acted – and below you can hear Seven Day Weekend with Jimmy Cliff on harmonica.