Toots And The Maytals

The Maytals, known from 1972 to 2020 as Toots and the Maytals, are a Jamaican musical group, one of the best known ska and rocksteady vocal groups. The Maytals were formed in the early 1960s and were key figures in popularizing reggae music.

Frontman Toots Hibbert, who died in 2020, was considered a reggae pioneer on par with Bob Marley. His soulful vocal style was compared to Otis Redding, and led him to be named by ''Rolling Stone'' as one of the 100 Greatest Singers. After Hibbert's death, the Maytals indicated that they would continue as a working group.

Their 1968 single " Do the Reggay" was the first song to use the word "reggae", coining the name of the genre and introducing it to a global audience. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' credits Toots and the Maytals in the etymology of the word "Reggae". According to Island Records founder Chris Blackwell "The Maytals were unlike anything else ... sensational, raw and dynamic."

Career

Formation and early success

Frederick "Toots" Hibbert, the frontman of the group, was born in May Pen, Clarendon, Jamaica, in 1942, the youngest of seven children. He grew up singing gospel music in a church choir and moved to Kingston in the late 1950s.Thompson, Dave (2002) ''Reggae & Caribbean Music'', Backbeat Books, , pp. 178–181

The Maytals

Hibbert met Henry "Raleigh" Gordon and Nathaniel "Jerry" Mathias in Kingston in 1962 and formed The Maytals as a vocal trio, a group whose early recordings were incorrectly attributed to The Flames and The Vikings in the UK by Island Records. The first instrumentalist members added to the group included Jackie Jackson, Hux Brown, Rad Bryan, and Paul Douglas. In 1972, the group changed its name from The Maytals to Toots and the Maytals, with "Toots" referring to frontman Toots Hibbert, and "the Maytals" referring to the group's instrumentalists and background vocalists. In November 2016, Jackie Jackson described the formation of the group in a radio interview for Kool 97 FM Jamaica. Accompanied by Paul Douglas and Radcliffe "Dougie" Bryan in studio, Jackson explained,

We're all original members of Toots and the Maytals band. First it was Toots and the Maytals, three guys: Toots, Raleigh, and Jerry…And then they were signed to Island Records, Chris Blackwell. And we were their recording band...Blackwell] decided that the backing band that back all of the songs, the recording band, should be the Maytals band. So everything came under Toots and the Maytals. And then we hit the road in 1975.

The 1960s

The Maytals first had chart success when recording for producer Clement "Coxsone" Dodd at Studio One. With musical backing from Dodd's house band, the Skatalites, the Maytals' close- harmony gospel singing ensured success, overshadowing Dodd's other up-and-coming vocal group, the Wailers. After staying at Studio One for about two years, the group moved on to do sessions for Prince Buster before recording with Byron Lee in 1966. With Lee, the Maytals won the first-ever Jamaican Independence Festival Popular Song Competition in 1966 with their original song "Bam Bam". "Bam Bam" was later covered in a Dancehall style by Sister Nancy and also by Yellowman in 1982, but Toots and the Maytals were not credited or issued royalties for use of the song by either artist.R. Henry Gordon, N. N. McCarthy & Frederick Hibbert (1978) "ABC reggae & 260 other titles. (Part 001 of 002)", United States Copyright Office, Document Number V1700P105 They went on to win that contest two additional times. The group's musical career was interrupted in late 1966 when Hibbert was jailed for 18 months for possession of marijuana. He stated that he was not arrested for marijuana, but while bailing out a friend. Hibbert reportedly wrote "54-46 That's My Number" about his time in jail.

Following Hibbert's release in 1967, the Maytals began working with the Chinese Jamaican producer Leslie Kong, a collaboration which yielded a string of hits throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s. These included " Do the Reggay", released in 1968, which was the first song to first use the word "reggae" and gave the developing genre its name.

The Maytals are responsible for some of the biggest hits in reggae history, including "Pressure Drop," "Sweet and Dandy" and "54-46 That's My Number".

The 1970s

In 1970 "Monkey Man" became the group's first international hit. By 1971, they signed a recording contract with Chris Blackwell's Island Records, become the biggest act in Jamaica, and had become international stars. Blackwell initially concentrated on the UK market, where previous Jamaican acts had had success. The band's albums with Island Records were released through its Dragon Records imprint.

In 1972 the group won the Jamaican Independence Festival Popular Song Competition for a third time with "Pomp and Pride". That year, the group contributed two songs to the soundtrack for ''The Harder They Come'', the 1972 film starring Jimmy Cliff, named as one of '' Vanity Fair''s top 10 soundtracks of all time. The film introduced Jamaican music to American audiences, and the band appears in one of the scenes.

After Kong's death in 1971, the group continued to record with Kong's former sound engineer, Warrick Lyn. Their re-instated producer Byron Lee renamed them Toots & the Maytals. The group released three best-selling albums produced by Lyn and Blackwell of Island Records, and enjoyed international hits with ''Funky Kingston'' in 1973 and ''Reggae Got Soul'' in 1975. Music critic Lester Bangs described the album ''Funky Kingston'' in ''Stereo Review'' as "perfection, the most exciting and diversified set of reggae tunes by a single artist yet released". Chris Blackwell had a strong commitment to Toots and the Maytals, saying "I've known Toots longer than anybody – much longer than Bob (Bob Marley). Toots is one of the purest human beings I've met in my life, pure almost to a fault." To promote these albums, the band toured with the Who, Jackson Browne, the Eagles, and Linda Ronstadt.

On 1 October 1975, Toots and the Maytals were broadcast live on KMET-FM as they performed at The Roxy Theatre in Los Angeles. This broadcast was re-mastered and released as the ''Sailin' On'' album via Klondike Records.

Following the release of ''Reggae Got Soul'', Toots & the Maytals were invited to tour as the opening act for the Who during their 1975–76 North American tour.

Toots and the Maytals' compositions experienced a resurgence of popularity in 1978–80 during the reggae punk and ska revival period in the UK, when the Specials covered "Monkey Man" on their 1979 debut album and the Clash covered the group's hit "Pressure Drop". During this period Toots and the Maytals were also included in the lyrics to Bob Marley & the Wailers' song, "Punky Reggae Party": "The Wailers will be there, the Damned, the Jam, the Clash, the Maytals will be there, Dr. Feelgood too".

The 1980s

''Guinness Book of World Records''

On 29 September 1980, the band recorded, pressed and distributed a new album, ''Toots Live'', to the record shops all in the space of 24 hours in an attempt to make the ''Guinness Book of World Records''. A live concert was recorded on reels of two-inch, 24-track analog tape, then rushed by van to sound engineers. After a running order was determined, the record label was quickly designed and sent to the printers. The album masters, labels and the outer covers were then separately sped to the Gedmel factory near Leicester, and the finished product was assembled and delivered to Coventry, where the band was playing the next day, successfully meeting the 24-hour deadline. Due to record label oversight, the achievement was not successfully registered with the ''Guinness Book of World Records''. Island Records' Rob Bell was quoted as saying, "Unfortunately, the record was ''not'' included in the Guinness book, because they required prior notification that the event was going to take place, and no one at Island had informed them of the project!" The record for "fastest album release" was not officially held in the ''Guinness Book of World Records'' until 28 years later when Vollgas Kompanie claimed the honour in 2008 for recording and releasing their album ''Live'' in 24 hours – matching the time interval in which Toots and the Maytals recorded, pressed and distributed ''Toots Live'' in 1980.

The group split up after releasing the 1981 album ''Knockout''. In 1982, Toots & the Maytals' "Beautiful Woman" reached number one in New Zealand.

Hibbert continued to record as a solo artist throughout the 1980s.

1990s

In the early 1990s a new lineup of the Maytals was formed. In February 1990 Toots and the Maytals performed on VH1's ''New Visions World Beat'', guest-hosted by Nile Rodgers. The group continued touring and recording successfully, with two appearances at Reggae Sunsplash in the mid-1990s.

2000s

In a 2003 review on NPR's Fresh Air broadcast, critic Milo Miles described the song Pressure Drop as, "utterly irresistible but utterly mysterious like Louie Louie or Tutti Frutti. It gets over on pure passion, and it seems all you need to know is when it drops you're gonna feel it."

In 2004, the group released '' True Love'', an album of re-recorded versions of their earlier hits in collaboration with fellow musicians including Bonnie Raitt, Willie Nelson, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Trey Anastasio, No Doubt, Ben Harper, the Roots, and Shaggy. The album received critical acclaim from outlets including NPR and Rolling Stone. The ''True Love'' album won the Grammy Award that year for best reggae album.

Donald Trump was quoted as appreciating the reggae music of Toots and the Maytals in 2004 when he said, "I heard the guest band, Toots & The Maytals, practising out on the set of ''Saturday Night Live''" (Trump was the guest host on an episode in April 2004). "They sounded terrific, and I went out to listen to them for a while. My daughter Ivanka had told me how great they were, and she was right. The music relaxed me, and surprisingly, I was not nervous."

In 2006, they recorded a reggae/ska version of Radiohead's " Let Down" for the tribute album, ''Radiodread''. The album was a song for song makeover of the British rock band's album '' OK Computer'' into reggae, dub and ska. In August 2007 Toots & the Maytals released ''Light Your Light'', which featured re-workings of older songs such as "Johnny Cool Man", as well as new material. The album was nominated in 2008 for a Grammy in the best reggae album category.

Toots & the Maytals hold the current record of number one hits in Jamaica, with a total of thirty-one.

In commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the record label Island Records Toots & the Maytals and Amy Winehouse, both signed up to the label, were billed to perform together at the Shepherd's Bush Empire in London on 31 May 2009. Winehouse had covered the band's "Monkey Man". However, Winehouse's performance was cancelled, and Toots & the Maytals instead played at the more intimate Bush Hall to a sell-out crowd.

2010s

In 2011, director George Scott and producer Nick De Grunwald released the documentary ''Reggae Got Soul: The Story of Toots and the Maytals'', which was featured on BBC
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