My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

There are a bunch of great reggae musicians, but there are only two who I can listen to anytime.  They are the master and all time greatest Bob Marley and the man of joy and optimism, Jimmy Cliff.

The truth is that Jimmy’s music is easier to listen to than Bob’s.  The Gotham Gal loves Jimmy Cliff and we used to listen to his record Special, which came out in the early 80s, all the time when we first lived together in NYC.

There are two Jimmy Cliff records that are Top 50 candidates and they have one overlapping song on them.

The first is the Soundtrack to The Harder They Come.

This is a gritty Jamaican movie featuring Jimmy Cliff as a Robin Hood type. 

I can’t honestly recommend the movie, but the soundtrack is another story.  It’s some of the best reggae music ever recorded and features four fantastic songs by Jimmy Cliff as well as songs by Toots and the Maytalls and several other great reggae musicians.

If you like reggae music and don’t have this record, you should get it.

But the Jimmy Cliff record that we always come back to and must have played a thousand times is called Wonderful World Beautiful People.  The title alone speaks to Jimmy’s sunny disposition.

Jimmy’s masterpiece, Many Rivers To Cross, is on both Wonderful World and Harder They Come.  But the rest of this record is different.

I am particularly fond of Use What I Got, Hello Sunshine, and the protest song, Vietnam.  But the whole record is fantastic and I am thrilled to add it to my Top 50 today.