Jimmy Cliff

music, and also that song talks about my character, Ivanhoe, from The Harder They Come movie. Joe Strummer was a friend, too. He made his last ever studio recording with me. I also loved Sam Cooke. Such a beautiful voice! My song Many Rivers to Cross is the kind of song he might have sung. It’s about the state of mind I was in at the time, both artistically and as a man, and remaining hopeful about overcoming the obstacles ahead. He wrote about similar things. Like him, I am the sort of individual who always sees light at the end of the tunnel.’’ Brazilian soul/funk godfather Tim Maia died in 1998, aged just 55, but his legacy lives on. Among the first to cross-breed Brazilian pop and American soul, Maia’s life was a constant wristwrestle between the carnal and the spiritual. Before donning white robes and joining a UFO-obsessed religious cult, he married five times, necked endless LSD, and was in and out of prison so often his cell probably had a ‘‘reserved’’ sign. Through it all miraculous music was made, and David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label spent a decade licensing these key tracks from his 70s heyday. Que Beleza sets the master’s soulful vocal amid blazing horns, mad fuzz-tone guitar and boiling percussion. Let’s Have a Ball Tonight eulogises the healing power of sex. The low-slung O Caminho Do Bem is Brazil’s answer to Sly Stone; Quer Quiera is as rhythmically irresistible as any James Brown cut; Racianal outlines Maia’s flaky alien philosophy over a percolating 12-minute funk groove, and your lack of fluent Portuguese may not stop you shedding a tear to Ela Partiu.