Reggae royalty

Who gets credit for giving the genre its name? None other than Toots and the Maytals, who are happy to look back but keep moving forward

CHRISTINE CLARKE , CanWest News Service

Published: Thursday, March 22, 2007

As a musically inclined kid growing up in the township of Maypen, Jamaica, Frederick Hibbert would stop and listen to American R&B and soul legends - Ray Charles, James Brown, Mahalia Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner and Sam Cooke would blare from the radio as he walked to school.

These singers would inspire Hibbert to create the smooth-sounding stage name, Maytal. Years later, he would come to be known as Toots, and his band, the Maytals, would become one of the most influential bands in reggae music. Heck, they even coined the name.

"We invented the word reggae," Toots says with surprising modesty for someone whose 1968 single, Do the Reggay, went on to define the genre.

"So, the youth of today really try to walk in our footsteps and walk in Bob Marley's footsteps and really try to develop this music more and more."

Those developments often take surprising turns. While the list of their accomplishments can fill an entire article - including the record for the most No. 1 hits, 31, in Jamaica and the influential single Pressure Drop from The Harder They Come soundtrack, an album largely credited with introducing America to reggae - it's their style that has pervaded time and influenced other genres, including hip-hop and modern-day reggae's penchant for inner-city narratives.

The song 54-46 (That's My Number) from the 1967 album In the Dark was one of the first reggae songs to receive international recognition and popularity outside of Jamaica. It chronicled Toots's stint in prison for possession of marijuana and was a powerful denunciation of a corrupt police system.

"Somebody got a bad mind about me," says Toots, recounting the events that inspired the song. "There's something in Jamaica called Festival (the Jamaican Festival Song Competition). I went and I performed a song called Bam Bam and it became No. 1 in the competition (and) a lot of great people were a part of that competition, like Bob Marley. So, when I won, (Island Records founder) Chris Blackwell came down from London and gave us a contract to do our first English tour."

It was at this point, Toots believes, that other bands conspired against him to stall his career.

"I never even smoked," he comments. "I was riding a motorbike with my two friends and (the police) said that we were riding without a rider's licence, but that was just to get to me. They tried to frame me, so I wrote a song about it. I never went to prison. I went to this place like an army dormitory. I got my own clothes, I got my own food, I got my guitar and I wrote 54-46.

It's commonplace for reggae and hip-hop artists to rouse audiences with their gritty stories of prison life (whether those stories are real or imagined is another story), but Toots's real-life account of his 18-month incarceration is as stirring now as it was unsettling then.

"I never got any bail," he continues. "They just held me to make the time run down on my career. It's politics, and (my career) was coming up too quick."

The initial setback didn't do much to stall a 40-year run that, in recent years, has seen Toots and the Maytals pick up a Grammy for their 2005 album True Love, a collaboration that saw such musicians as Eric Clapton, the Roots, Willie Nelson, No Doubt, Keith Richards and Ben Harper join the band for re-recorded versions of their classic songs.

Looking forward, Toots says the band plans to axe the "Toots" and revert back to its original name, the Maytals, to record an album of new material. He's also looking forward to performing in front of a mountain backdrop at the coming Whistler Ski and Snowboard Festival in Whistler, B.C., as well as other Canadian dates.

The band's most memorable gig is a 1980 performance at London's Hammersmith Palais, which, unbeknownst to Toots and the Maytals, was being recorded for an impromptu album. "One of the greatest things was when I recorded (Toots Live at the Hammersmith Palais). We were called to do the show that night. By daylight we pressed the album and by 12 o'clock, we sold over 50,000 copies. It was the fastest recording ever done in history. That was a great time. Nobody told us until after we (performed) what was happening, so we were pretty lucky that we did a good job."

Toots and the Maytals play Tuesday at the Spectrum, 318 Ste. Catherine St. W. Tickets, $25, are available through Ticketpro, 514-908-9090 or www.ticketpro.ca.

© The Gazette (Montreal) 2007