Jimmy Cliff

Jimmy Cliff has always occupied an odd position in reggae music, first of all because he predates it significantly, but also because for much of his career he merged his musical interests with international pop considerations to the extent that he managed to record frequently for such major labels as Warner, EMI, Universal, and Sony. Although his commercial success was spotty, it was recurrent; he first hit the charts internationally in 1969 and was still scoring occasionally in the mid-'90s. His label hopping had made it practically impossible to assemble a thorough compilation of his work until the release of Anthology. Universal's Hip-O reissue subsidiary specializes in putting together anthologies that span record labels, and the compilers had quite a task on their hands when it came to Cliff.