[Negril75]

   

Jimmy Cliff is one of the nicest people that I have ever met.His birth name was James Chambers and his brother Victor Chambers was his manager back in the 1980's. I do not know if Victor is still alive or not but they both hail from Montego Bay hence Jimmy Cliff Boulevard. Jimmy had moved away from Jamaica for a while because of the uptick in violence but I understand that he has a place in Kingston of late where he spends some time. I don't think that he has toured much in the past couple of years. He is an awesome performer who puts on a great show!!

[Firemon]

Sweet photo! Sorta neat how you can get close to a reggae artist from a small island nation when that would be much less likely I presume with famous singers of more popular music genres.

I've seen Cliff perform three or four times, but never from the front row! I still have my ticket stubs so I'll try and dig them out.

In my mind the top three reggae stars of all time are Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff, and Peter Tosh. Not sure how anyone could argue with that.

My next tier would include Steel Pulse, Third World, UB40, and Gregory Isaacs.

Got to party one night backstage with The Wailers at First Avenue in Minneapolis. Had hoped to get a post performance autograph and that turned into a situation where Family Man was talking to fans about the early Wailers. None of them could recall many of the names of the earliest members aside from Peter Tosh and Rita Marley so I piped up and rattled off a bunch of names including Junior Braithwaite, Beverly Kelso, Tyrone Downie, Earl Wire Lindo, Chinna Smith, Al De Costa, Junior Marvin, Al Anderson, Judy Mowatt, Carly Barrettt and Family Mans face lit up with a huge smile. He then motioned for me to come with him into the Green Room saying "The band needs to meet you." A couple minutes later I reprised my list to much acclaim. Someone said something about 'dis white boy' and everyone laughed so I smiled. Hung out for about an hour before they boarded their bus.

[Negril75]

Firemon,
Nice story!! The Jamaican Reggae artists seem to be more down to earth in their approach to life. I often had backstage passes that allowed me to access not only the stage but down front to shoot pictures.

One show I saw was in Germany and it was unbelievable in that there were like 100 spectators in what resembled an elementary school gym. I was embarrassed for Jimmy and the promoter must have taken a big hit but the show when on and it was a great show with those in attendance having a very up close and personal experience!!

As a hockey player I had access to lots of shows over the years including a very memorable one a Grateful Dead Show. Jerry Garcia was an amazing person. Needless to say it was a great show!!