#380 - Toots and the Maytals - Funky Kingston (1975)

MUSIC HISTORY WRITTEN BY HEAD WRITER DJ MORTY COYLE:

Released in 1975 on Island Records subsidiary Mango Records and produced by Chris Blackwell, Warwick Lyn, and Dave Bloxham this is the first U.S. release by the Jamaican, Ska, Rocksteady, Reggae pioneers.

Let’s start with a few musical style definitions.

Originating in Jamaica in the late ‘50s Ska combined elements of Caribbean Mento and Calypso with American Jazz and Rhythm and Blues. It’s characterized by a walking bass line accented with rhythms on the off beat.

By the mid-’60s it was slowed down with extra accented rhythms and the bass playing counterpoint and became Rocksteady. Then the bass became more percussive, it got jazzier, and evolved into Reggae… which today’s artist is credited with naming.

Now everybody knows Bob Marley and the Wailers but somehow Toots and the Maytals have still gone largely undiscovered by many people. Frederick “Toots” Hibbert, Henry "Raleigh" Gordon, and Nathaniel "Jerry" Mathias started the Ska vocal trio The Maytals in Kingston, Jamaica in 1962, the same year the country got its independence from the British and a year before The Wailers.

Although The Wailers were signed to Chris Blackwell’s Island Records first, The Maytals soon followed and released several popular singles and records that actually overshadowed The Wailers. Lead vocalist/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Toots Hibbert who was more raw and earthy than Bob Marley was often compared to Otis Redding.

After some forced time off (an 18-month jail sentence for marijuana possession) that we’ll get to later by the early ‘70s main songwriter Toots was given top billing and the rest of the vocalists and backing band inherited the name the Maytals which for this record included Neville Hinds on keyboards, Jackie Jackson on bass, Paul Douglas on drums, Winston Grennan on drums and the Ghanian horn section, Sons of the Jungle.

Then in 1972 Reggae had its greatest international breakthrough when the Jamaican crime film “The Harder They Come” starring Reggae artist Jimmy Cliff came out. Along with other popular artists the soundtrack album featured two songs by The Maytals which sparked worldwide interest in Reggae.

So Chris Blackwell specifically marketed his artists including The Maytals to achieve maximum crossover and international appeal, especially into the U.S. market. He took the name and front cover of the 1972 release of “Funky Kingston” but kept only three songs from it.

For the American version he added six songs from their second album, “In the Dark” and their hit 1969 single “Pressure Drop” that was on the “The Harder They Come” soundtrack. Blackwell’s ideas worked and the band found fame and toured with huge artists.

Then in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s they had another career boost when the new British Punk and Skinhead movements embraced early Ska and Rocksteady. They continued to release records, won the Best Reggae Album Grammy in 2004, and constantly toured but in May of 2013 Toots was hit in the head onstage by a thrown vodka bottle that had him off the road for a few years before returning.

In August of last year they put out their first album in a decade which got nominated for another Grammy. Then two weeks later Toots tragically died of COVID-19 on September 11th.

To date they have had thirteen #1 songs in Jamaica.