This is an Enhanced CD, which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files.

One of the first Jamaican artists to achieve international success, Jimmy Cliff started his career in the early 1960s as something of a local child prodigy. This volume of THIS IS CRUCIAL REGGAE is revealing in its juxtapositions of both earlier and later periods of Cliff's career. For example, the socially conscious "Wonderful World, Beautiful People," displaying Cliff's rapidly maturing songwriting and vocal styles, is followed by the early-'60s "Since Lately," where both skills are obviously still in their embryonic stages. Likewise the ska-flavored "I'm Free," featuring a juvenile-sounding Cliff performing a simple lyric, precedes the confident and nuanced "Time Will Tell," with its big-time pop production and world-weary vocal.

This contrast between early- and mid- period performances is always illuminating and frequently startling, most notably in the case of comparisons between arguably Cliff's finest performance, the aching "Many Rivers to Cross," and the following lightweight ska rave-up, "My Lucky Day," recorded a mere five years earlier. Featuring many such comparisons, THIS IS CRUCIAL REGGAE: JIMMY CLIFF is an enlightening glimpse into the maturation of a seminal reggae artist.