“I’m a bit of a rebellious person” AN AUDIENCE WITH JIMMY CLIFF
“I don’t think I’ll ever lose the excitement of performing”
GREETING Uncut in the lounge of a Marylebone hotel, Jimmy Cliff is resplendent in a brocaded tunic and matching gold hat emblazoned with the Eye Of Horus. He could be mistaken for African royalty, but Cliff is very much a man of the people, using his day off before a festival appearance to visit some of his old stomping grounds in the capital’s less celebrated postcodes.
“I’ve been to Finsbury Park, Tottenham, Chelsea, some of those places I used to live,” reveals the Jamaican singer, who was still just a teenager when he relocated to London – via New York – in the mid-’60s, grafting the all-nighter circuit before eventually achieving global fame towards the end of the decade with crossover hits such as “Wonderful World, Beautiful People” and “Many Rivers To Cross”. “They are building everywhere,” he notes, wistfully. “I visited some neighbourhood that I used to know, I don’t recognise it. It’s changing, but that’s how it goes.”
Cliff is 71 and
