The ManicaPost
WHILE they never achieved the commercial success or cultural impact of the Wailers, Toots & the Maytals were nearly as important in the history of Jamaican music; like the Wailers, the Maytals thrived as ska gave way to rocksteady and then evolved into reggae, they boasted one of the island’s finest singers and most charismatic front men in the great Toots Hibbert, and they worked with many of the most important producers and side men on the island.
The Maytals were also the band that most clearly demonstrated the links between Jamaican sounds and American R&B (Hibbert’s rich, emotive vocal style was informed by Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, and other soul icons), and the group’s catalog contains a number of crucial, frequently covered tracks, most notably the classic “Pressure Drop.”
Toots & the Maytals were founded by Frederick “Toots” Hibbert, who was born in May Pen, Clarendon Parish, Jamaica in 1945.
Hibbert was the youngest in a family of seven children, and first took up singing as a member of the church choir. In 1961, Hibbert set out for Kingston, and struck up a friendship with Nathaniel “Jerry” Matthias and Henry “Raleigh” Gordon, a pair of singers with a smattering of recording experience.
The three formed a vocal group, and in 1962 they were discovered by producer Clement “Coxsone” Dodd, who signed them to his Studio One label.
After releasing a debut single, “Hallelujah,” under the name the Vikings, the trio became known as the Maytals, and beginning with “Fever,” they issued a number of singles that were compiled into the 1963 album Never Grow Old.
The Maytals’ Studio One sides featured accompaniment by the legendary Jamaican band the Skatalites, and were dominated by strong, gospel-influenced close harmonies and Hibbert’s soulful lead vocals.
After two years with Studio One, the Maytals briefly worked with producer and ska pioneer Prince Buster before signing on with another Jamaican record man of note, Byron Lee, in 1965.
The Lee-produced material showed the Maytals were developing a more mature and polished approach, but the group hit a serious roadblock in 1966, when Hibbert was arrested for possession of marijuana; he was convicted, and would serve a year behind bars.
In 1967, Hibbert was a free man, and he reunited with Matthias and Gordon, renaming the group Toots & the Maytals. Hibbert’s stay in prison coincided with ska fading from the musical landscape in Jamaica as the proto-reggae sounds of rocksteady took its place.
The new style suited Toots & the Maytals, and they signed with producer Leslie Kong, with whom the group would record some of its biggest hits, including “Pressure Drop,” “Sweet and Dandy,” “Monkey Man,” “54-46 (That’s My Number),” and “Do the Reggay,” the latter often cited as the song that gave the new style of music its name.
When “Monkey Man” became a British hit in 1970,Toots & the Maytals began enjoying success outside Jamaica for the first time, and in 1972, “Pressure Drop” and “Sweet and Dandy” were featured on the soundtrack of the film The Harder They Come, starring Jimmy Cliff.
The movie was a smash in Jamaica and became an art house sensation in the United States, as the film and its soundtrack album helped make American listeners aware of the growing reggae phenomenon.
In 1971, Leslie Kong died, and Warwick Lyn, Kong’s primary recording engineer, took over as the group’s producer; Chris Blackwell, whose Island Records label was enjoying success releasing reggae material in the U.K. and U.S. (particularly Bob Marley & the Wailers), also joined their production team, and before long he would sign the group to Island, releasing a revamped version of the album Funky Kingston in the United States in 1975. — allmusic
