Before Bob Marley conquered the world, Jimmy Cliff was the number one man in reggae. Wonderful World, Beautiful People (known outside the US as the self-titled Jimmy Cliff) is the most secular, least Rasta record we've covered for Reggae Summer — and the album where Cliff brought protest and political consciousness into reggae before anyone else. It's "happy music, sad lyrics," it contains two of the greatest songs ever cut ("Many Rivers to Cross" and "Vietnam"), and almost no one remembers it was him who kicked the door down.

This week Nate and Brandon dig into early reggae before roots and dub, producer Leslie Kong and the Bunny Wailer curse, the mystery of who played on the record, the across-the-pond production that flew the tapes to New York, John Lennon and Paul Simon's debt to Cliff, and why — if Marley had never existed — we'd all b ...