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Jimmy Cliff.
 For a man who's been involved in the music industry for over 45 years Jimmy Cliff still holds a few surprises, not least among which is the fact that singing is not his first choice of profession, or even what he thinks he's best at. This despite his assertions that "there are three names that come to the front when you mention reggae: Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff and Peter Tosh."
Though the soundtrack to 'The Harder They Come' (for which he contributed six of the twelve songs) is the most successful reggae album ever, a spawned a host of 'shanty town gangsta' imitators, he would prefer to be remembered for playing the lead role of country boy turned gangster Ivanhoe Martin in the film "because acting is what I enjoy first and foremost and it's what I think I do better than anything else. At school I did a lot of acting and I really enjoyed it," he recounts, "but a lot of that involved singing. I discovered I could do it and it was easier to pursue."
Pursuing a music career didn't mean giving up acting altogether though- he's appeared alongside actors such as Robin Williams and Peter O'Toole and is currently working on a follow-up to 'The Harder They Come', well over thirty years after the original movie was released. "I've been wanting to do a sequel ever since it came out but the ownership and rights have taken quite a long time," he laments, before quickly adding that "if it doesn't work out, there's other stuff in the pipeline which is all associated with music in some small way but I can't reveal the details at the moment." Though these projects are still under wraps, he did reveal that he's currently working on two soundtracks and will finish work on these before a new solo album, despite his enthusiasm for his latest release, last year's 'Black Magic'.
Though the album, produced by Dave Stewart (The Eurythmics), is a long way from the sparse sound that Cliff started with, he emphasises the strong thematic connection that unites all his work. "I had some dancehall tracks on the last album but I'm still singing songs about uplifting the soul - you have the beat, and then you have what you put on top of it.
"A lot of people would like to separate reggae from dancehall," he continues, "but I stay with the evolution of it and keep making music." As a result, there can be a broad range of music in his set lists - "I do about 50/50 [old and new music] because I know that there are people who want to see older stuff and people who have never heard of Jimmy Cliff." With an 8-piece band backing him, though, he normally finds that people will dance to just about anything he plays, whether they've heard of him or not and "even in Europe and America I get that kind of comment, that people don't know Jimmy Cliff but the response has been really good from everybody."
While he anticipates that there will be plenty of people at WOMADelaide who aren't familiar with his music, he remains enthusiastic about his Australian tour. "I'm really looking forward to it because I was out there once but it was quite a long time ago."
And once he's finished this tour and the projects that he's working on? "more movies, more soundtracks, immersing myself in things that inspire the music of today, and trying to put my positive and uplifting point of view on all of that."
Alexis Buxton-Collins
 | Jimmy Cliff performs at WOMAD on Sun 12 March |
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