In many ways, Jimmy Cliff was similar to Ivan, the ambitious character he played in The Harder They Come, the 1972 movie that made him a superstar.

They were both from rural Jamaica who moved to Kingston with dreams of making it big in the music business.

While Ivan had a hit song, his life evolved into crime which resulted in his death. Cliff, the youth from Somerton, St James kept a clean sheet and became a global force.

He died on November 24 at age 81.

“He came from very humble beginnings. My mother, who was a teacher at Somerton Primary School, nurtured him and gave him his first piano lessons. She was also instrumental in helping him to make the move to Kingston to attend Kingston Technical,” Lennie Little-White, Cliff’s cousin, told Observer Online.

Little-White, a respected filmmaker whose credits include Children of Babylon and Royal Palm Estate, is also from Somerton. So too former Jamaica prime minister P J Patterson who was also taught by Rubertha Little-White at Somerton Primary School.

Cliff (born James Chambers) was the son of Polly Chambers, the village tailor. Little-White remembers Cliff being a regular visitor to the shop beside his father’s business place and listening to music on the jukebox.

“Jimmy would go there with a three pence coin to put in the jukebox and imitate Delroy Wilson singing Lion of Judah. He told me then that he wanted to follow Delroy’s footsteps,” Little-White recalled.

Recording for producer Leslie Kong’s Beverly’s Records, Cliff became a child star courtesy of songs like Hurricane Hattie in 1962. Two years later, he was a member of Jamaica’s delegation to the World’s Fair in New York.

In the late 1960s, Cliff had more success in the United Kingdom with the Kong-produced Wonderful World, Beautiful People and Vietnam, a song protesting the war in that country.

Although he had little acting experience, he was offered the role of Ivan in The Harder They Come by writer/director Perry Henzell. His raw portrayal of the cocky character helped make the movie a global sensation.

Jimmy Cliff won two Grammy Awards, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and awarded the Order of Merit, Jamaica’s fourth-highest honour.