Toots & The Maytals

While Toots & the Maytals never matched the Wailers in commercial reach or lasting cultural resonance, they stood nearly equal in shaping Jamaican music’s development. The group navigated the same transitions from ska into rocksteady and onward into reggae, fronted by one of the island’s most powerful and magnetic vocalists, Frederick “Toots” Hibbert, and collaborated repeatedly with its leading producers and session musicians. They also made the strongest case for the deep ties between Jamaican music and American R&B, as Hibbert’s warm, impassioned delivery drew directly from Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, and other soul masters. Their body of work includes several landmark songs that have been widely interpreted, above all the enduring “Pressure Drop.” A broadened reissue of the 1965 album The Sensational Maytals gathers strong early ska recordings; Funky Kingston from 1973 and Reggae Got Soul from 1976 remain exuberant, robust classics essential to any reggae collection; and the 1988 solo project Toots in Memphis finds Hibbert saluting the classic R&B that first moved him.

Frederick “Toots” Hibbert established Toots & the Maytals after being born in May Pen, Clarendon Parish, Jamaica, in 1945. The youngest of seven siblings, he began singing in his local church choir. He moved to Kingston in 1961 and soon formed a friendship with Nathaniel “Jerry” Matthias and Henry “Raleigh” Gordon, two vocalists who already possessed limited studio experience. The three began performing together and attracted the attention of producer Clement “Coxsone” Dodd in 1962, leading to a contract with his Studio One imprint. Their first single, “Hallelujah,” appeared under the temporary name the Vikings; shortly afterward they became the Maytals and released several singles starting with “Fever,” which were later collected on the 1963 album Never Grow Old. Those Studio One recordings featured the Skatalites as backing musicians and centered on robust, gospel-tinged harmonies supported by Hibbert’s soul-inflected lead. After two years at Studio One the Maytals spent a brief period with ska innovator Prince Buster before moving to Byron Lee in 1965. The Lee sessions revealed a growing sophistication, yet progress halted in 1966 when Hibbert was arrested on marijuana charges, convicted, and imprisoned for a year.

Released in 1967, Hibbert rejoined Matthias and Gordon under the revised name Toots & the Maytals. His incarceration had overlapped with ska’s decline and the rise of rocksteady, a style that suited the group’s strengths. They began working with producer Leslie Kong, yielding major hits such as “Pressure Drop,” “Sweet and Dandy,” “Monkey Man,” “54-46 (That’s My Number),” and “Do the Reggay,” the last frequently credited with supplying the new genre its name. “Monkey Man” reached British listeners in 1970, giving the band its first significant international exposure, while “Pressure Drop” and “Sweet and Dandy” appeared on the soundtrack to the 1972 film The Harder They Come, which starred Jimmy Cliff. The movie enjoyed enormous success in Jamaica and later became an art-house favorite in the United States, introducing many American audiences to reggae.

Leslie Kong’s death in 1971 prompted his chief engineer, Warwick Lyn, to assume production duties. Chris Blackwell, whose Island Records had already found success marketing reggae in Britain and the U.S., most notably with Bob Marley & the Wailers, also entered the production circle and soon placed the group on Island, issuing a revised edition of Funky Kingston in America in 1975. That year Toots & the Maytals made their first U.S. concert appearances as openers for the Who, although domestic audiences responded with relative restraint.

Island aimed to reach American R&B listeners with the 1976 album Reggae Got Soul, yet despite favorable reviews the band’s following in the States stayed limited to an enthusiastic niche. Subsequent releases, Pass the Pipe in 1979 and Just Like That in 1980, concentrated on their established Jamaican and British audiences. The next project, Live, earned a place in The Guinness Book of World Records after a performance at London’s Hammersmith Palais was pressed and stocked in shops within twenty-four hours. Around this time a younger audience discovered the Maytals through the Clash’s cover of “Pressure Drop” and the Specials’ inclusion of “Monkey Man” on their debut album.

After Knock Out! appeared in 1981 the original trio disbanded; Matthias and Gordon withdrew from music while Hibbert continued alone. He maintained an active touring schedule but did not record again until 1988, when a strong New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival set led the head of Mango Records to propose an album of American soul and R&B standards. Toots in Memphis united Hibbert with the formidable Jamaican rhythm section of Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare plus members of the Hi Records and Stax Records studio ensembles. Critics praised the record, which also brought Hibbert a Grammy nomination.

In the mid-1990s Hibbert formed a new edition of Toots & the Maytals without Gordon and Matthias, touring widely and issuing several albums on specialist reggae labels. A notable return came with 2004’s True Love, on which Hibbert revisited signature material alongside guests that included Eric Clapton, No Doubt, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt, Keith Richards, and the Roots. Following that Grammy-winning set of collaborations, he returned to solo work with 2007’s Light Your Light. In 2012 the current Maytals lineup embarked on a worldwide acoustic tour marking fifty years since their first recordings, resulting in two live albums, Reggae Got Soul: Unplugged on Strawberry Hill and Live! A 2013 stage incident in which an intoxicated fan threw a vodka bottle that struck Hibbert led him to reduce his schedule, appearing only sporadically and avoiding the studio. When drummer and reggae enthusiast Zak Starkey started the Trojan Jamaica label, one of its earliest signings was Toots & the Maytals; their debut for the imprint, Got to Be Tough, was released in August 2020. The comeback proved brief: shortly after the album’s arrival Hibbert was hospitalized with COVID-19 symptoms and died in Kingston, Jamaica, on September 11, 2020.