Jimmy Cliff: Wonderful World, Beautiful People
1969
A&M Records
Format I Own it on: Vinyl
Track Listing: 1. Time Will Tell 2. Many Rivers to Cross 3. Vietnam 4. Use What I Got 5. Hard Road to Travel 6. Wonderful World, Beautiful People 7. Sufferin' in the Land 8. Hello Sunshine 9. My Ancestors 10. That's The Way Life Goes 11. Come Into My Life
Like Captain Beefheart, Jimmy Cliff is one of those artists whose discography I started to buy up right around the time I started this blog...As a result, these posts are kind of all over the place, which is fitting since I'm having a hard time figuring out Jimmy's discography...What exactly is his first album? I'm still not really sure...Dating back to 1969, "Wonderful World, Beautiful People" is the oldest one I've been able to find so far...Complicating things, this album was originally released under a different title (in fact, it was a self titled album simply called "Jimmy Cliff)....
This is also one of the best albums I've heard by him..Just straight up everything that's great about Jimmy Cliff is contained here...The handful of the albums from the late 60's-early 70's are the benchmark and the stuff before and after it always have some sort of qualifier to denote that it's not from the late 60's-early 70's......Example: This album is from the early ska Jimmy Cliff era. Or this album is from the synth-y 80's Jimmy Cliff era. Or this album is from the comeback Jimmy Cliff era. See what I mean?
And what's odd for an album so representative of an artist's sound is the diversity on display...Not to mention the genre he's most closely allied with (reggae) isn't generally synonymous with musical diversity...But you get Jimmy's signature reggae ("Use What I Got,"), soul ballads (career highlight "Many rivers to Cross"...Which if you catch me at the right time, I might proclaim to be the greatest song of all damn time), and even psychedelic rock ("That's the Way Life Goes")...Yes, you heard me...If you want to hear Jimmy Cliff get all Steppenwolf on us, you might need to check this out...
"It was just the next day, his mother got a telegram,
It was addressed from Vietnam.
Now mistress Brown, she lives in the USA,
And this is what she wrote and said,
'Don't be alarmed', she told me the telegram said
'But mistress Brown your son is dead'..."
It kinda works...It makes the bitter pill go down mighty easy...Usually heavy-handed message-songs fill me with a sort of dread that makes me want to avoid them all together...Not this! The message sinks in even deeper somehow...Probably due to the fact that you can't get the bouncy hook out of your head...
Oh yea, one odd thing about the album is the presence of lush strings on some of the songs (the title track and " Sufferin' in the Land" fer example). I know it was a common practice during the early reggae era for the international releases to have strings added after the fact. I don't know if this was the case or not, but if these were later additions I have to hand it to whoever did the arrangements. Usually I'm against this practice but in this case the orchestration sounds great to me...Not overdone whatsoever. Subtly enhancing the material. Maybe Jimmy's angelic vocal approach suits this style...Maybe the songs were written with the strings in mind...Who knows...Not me. I just write stuff on the internet with zero idea what I'm talking about...Here let's make up some other baloney...Ummm...
Starting June 26, 2015, you will no longer be able to buy Bologna in North America!
BETTER RUN TO YOUR LOCAL GROCER! BUY UP ALL THE OSCAR MAYER YOU CAN BEFORE IT'S ALL GONE! THOSE DAMN LIBERALS HAVE REALLY GONE TOO FAR THIS TIME, BY GOD!!
Alright, I better start reeling things in...If you're in the market for Jimmy Cliff albums, then this is the safest of all possible choices...Probably better than most of the Jimmy Cliff's Greatest Hits albums you can find. Not a single weak track on the thing...
Here's "Use What I Got" by Jimmy Cliff...Enjoy...
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