Powerful singer helped to make reggae one of the great global musical forces
Toots Hibbert, who has died aged 77 after contracting Covid-19, was the singer with Toots & the Maytals, and one of the great figures of Jamaican music. His 1968 song Do the Reggay was the first chart entry of this new musical form, and the first to name it – even if spelt differently. It went to No 1 in Jamaica, and the Maytals, as they were originally known, had 31 Jamaican chart-toppers, more than any other artist, including Bob Marley.
With a voice like a Caribbean Otis Redding, and a phenomenal stage presence, Hibbert was also a multi-instrumentalist. During the 1960s, working first in the ska and rock steady styles, Hibbert’s three-piece vocal group the
Maytals, formed with Henry
‘‘Raleigh’’
Gordon and Nathaniel ‘‘Jerry’’ Mathias in 1962, were the biggest act in Jamaica, their sales and popularity eclipsing the Wailers, their main rivals.
Hibbert’s triumphs included being a threetime winner of the annual Jamaica National Popular Song Contest, each time with a selfpenned composition: Bam Bam (1966), Sweet and Dandy (1969), and Pomp And Pride (1972).
His impact on modern music and culture was immense: the intuitive assessments of specific examples of Jamaican injustice in his songs had a universal resonance and reach for successive generations. One example was his 1968 tune Pressure Drop, which became a staple of the Clash’s live sets on their first significant tour, in 1977, and was recorded by them in 1979. The Maytals were referenced, along with assorted punk bands, in Bob Marley’s song Punky Reggae Party.
Hibbert’s first international hit, Monkey Man, was included by the Specials on their 1979 debut album. Amy Winehouse also recorded it and performed it live. Later, Toots re-recorded the song with the Los Angeles skainfluenced act No Doubt as part of his 2004 Grammy-winning duets album True Love.
In 2010 Rolling Stone magazine rated Hibbert as one of the Top 100 all-time great singers. One of his True Love collaborators, Bonnie Raitt, described him as ‘‘one of the most powerful and original soul singers ever’’. Her appreciation was shared by other luminaries on the album, including Eric Clapton, Willie Nelson and Keith Richards.
Pressure Drop and Sweet and Dandy featured in the 1972 Jamaican film The Harder They Come. Signed to Island Records, Toots and the Maytals – as they were renamed with the departure of Gordon and Mathias – produced a string of albums that introduced reggae to a mainstream audience, notably the Funky Kingston and Reggae Got Soul sets, two of the foundation works of Jamaican music.
Their success endured despite the 12 months Hibbert spent in prison for marijuana possession; he maintained he had been set up.
He turned the experience into something positive: one of his best-known songs, 54-46 That’s My Number, derived from his jail number.
Hibbert’s story was an archetype of the Jamaican diaspora, his tale one that mirrored the sweeping social changes of the years since independence in 1962. He worked extensively around the world, especially in the United States, Britain, Europe, Australia and Japan.
The youngest of seven children, Frederick Nathaniel Hibbert was born in the central Jamaican town of May Pen, where he first sang in church. He moved to Trenchtown in Kingston when he was 13, becoming a barber.
‘‘I make my little four-string guitar and people listen to it in the barber’s shop,’’ he recalled. ‘‘One day Raleigh come down and say, ‘Teach me how to sing.’ I meet Jerry the next day, and we sit under a guinep tree, and everybody just start to sing. I teach them harmony. I teach them how to write song. And they teach me how to grow up.’’
In 1961 they moved to work with Coxsone Dodd, whose Studio One label nurtured most of Jamaica’s greatest musicians. They also recorded with Prince Buster, Duke Reid, and Mrs Pottinger, celebrated eminences grises of the local music scene. ‘‘We don’t get no money, really,’’ recalled Hibbert. ‘‘In those days we get a pound or two pounds. Maybe five pounds. And we share it, the three of us. And it go on like that for a long time.’’
But it was Do the Reggay, Hibbert said, that moved his work on to an entirely new level: ‘‘Everyone who listen to my song after that, they tell me that they feel a different spirit, that I revive their spirit. If they was down, the music just lift them up. So I was really proud of that, and it wasn’t me by myself – it was the power of the most high.
‘‘If I’m doing something I have to do it with a certain spirit, to make sure the Father appreciate it. He give me the talent, really.’’
In August 2020 Toots and the Maytals released a new 10-song album, Got to be Tough, Hibbert’s 24th. That month he was admitted to hospital suffering from Covid-19.
Toots Hibbert, who in 2012 was awarded the Order of Jamaica, is survived by his wife and seven of his eight children. – Telegraph Group
‘‘If I’m doing something I have to do it with a certain spirit, to make sure the Father appreciate it. He give me the talent, really.’’