This week on From the Vault we hear from a 27-year old Jimmy Cliff, one of the pioneering forces of reggae music, in the form of a 1975 interview recorded at WBAI studios in New York City. Longtime KPFK Reggae Central radio host and author Chuck Foster guides us through the life and music of Jimmy Cliff, starting from his earliest days of hustling songs in Kingston, Jamaica in the early 1960’s, to his latest album Rebirth, released in 2012. Our featured Jimmy Cliff interview from Pacifica Radio Archives focuses on the 1972 release of the Jamaican cult crime flick The Harder They Come (in which Cliff stars), which wasn’t widely released in the United States until after a run of very popular midnight showings in major North American cities throughout 1974 and 1975.

From the Vault is presented through the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project, funded in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, past grants from the Grammy Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the American Archive funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, along with the generous support of Pacifica Radio listeners.

PURCHASE a copy of this program or learn more about the historic archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

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