When Jimmy Cliff brought reggae to Long Island

"Jimmy is his name, music is his game," an announcer said before reggae icon Jimmy Cliff took the stage at My Father’s Place in Roslyn on Nov. 24, 1978. After enthusiastic applause from the crowd, Cliff and his band launched into "Bongo Man," a hypnotic chant off his then-newest album, "Give Thankx."

Reggae was then still so new that a Newsday article the year before helpfully provided its pronunciation: "reh-gay."

Cliff, who died last month, was embraced by Long Island during the 1970s and beyond. He played one of his earliest shows here to a small but dedicated crowd on Nov. 1, 1975, at Hempstead's Calderone Concert Hall. By then he was becoming a cult hero in the U.S. for his role in the 1972 Jamaican crime drama "The Harder They Come," which had just started screening regularly at Uniondale’s famous Mini-Cinema. And in 1976, driven partly by Cliff’s breakthrough success, My Father’s Place began holding its first summer series of weekly reggae nights, titled Roots, that would attract Peter Tosh, Burning Spear and others.

"I was obsessed with the music," said Michael "Eppy" Epstein, the club’s owner, who recalls seeing Cliff perform in Jamaica in early 1972. When "The Harder They Come" arrived in America, Epstein says, "All of a sudden he was an actor, he was a producer — it was a big deal."

The young Cliff spent his childhood in Kingston, Jamaica, and began singing as a teenager. He was a representative for his country at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York City and signed with Chris Blackwell’s Island Records in 1965. One of Cliff’s first major hits, "Many Rivers to Cross" — a soul-searching ballad about his years of music-biz failure — came in 1969 and would be covered by artists including Cher, Harry Nilsson and UB40.

In 1972, Cliff appeared in Harry Penzell’s low-budget Jamaican crime drama "The Harder They Come" as Ivan Martin, a struggling singer who turns to a life of crime. The soundtrack, released on Blackwell’s Mango Records subsidiary, became a breakthrough for reggae music in America and beyond. Cliff’s title track, a winning combination of hard-knock lyrics and a bouncy beat, would be covered by Joe Jackson, Madness and others. Another track Cliff contributed to the film, "You Can Get It If You Really Want," would become a UK and European hit for Desmond Dekker (himself a ska pioneer) several years later, in 1970.

In October  1975, the Mini-Cinema began screening "The Harder They Come" as a Thursday midnight show — a tough slot for any film — and watched its audience slowly grow. "We keep showing it because word-of-mouth takes time and there are people who want to see it," programmer Marc Laffie told Newsday at the time, adding that he planned to screen the film through late December.

As the 1970s progressed, the Jamaican music known as ska — bright and upbeat, with a swift tempo — gave way to the mellower, funkier sound of reggae. Epstein launched a show on WLIR called "Punky Reggae Party," named for a Bob Marley song; indeed, the punk and new wave movements of the following decade would draw heavily from Jamaican music. The Police and The Clash both trafficked in reggae, while The Specials, The English Beat and Madness dove into ska.

Cliff was long credited as a cultural ambassador for his native country. He won two Grammy Awards, found success with covers of Cat Stevens’ "Wild World" and Johnny Nash’s "I Can See Clearly Now" (featured in the 1993 movie "Cool Runnings," about a Jamaican bobsled team) and became the second-ever reggae musician — following Marley — to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

"My role has always been as the shepherd of reggae music," he once said, according to The Hollywood Reporter. "When they wanted to bring reggae to America, they sent Jimmy Cliff."