Page 29 - Reggae Festival Guide Magazine 2018

he adjective “legendary” gets thrown Hibbert was exposed from an early age to

around often describing influential the rhythmic and melodic framework of

musicians, but nothing could be Jamaican gospel, and of course schooled
Tmore applicable to describe Frederick in its Old Testament narratives. While these

“Toots” Hibbert. A 60-year veteran of the elements are at the core of his identity, an

Jamaican music industry, the first use of the exposure to Rastafari also marked an essential

term “reggae” in a popular recording traces phase in the young singer’s development,
directly to him, placing him at the foundation as he explained to archivist Steve Barrow in

of a global movement. When “Do The Reggay” a 1995 Palm Pictures interview.

became a hit in 1968, his group the Maytals “I used to go to church with my parents. It

had already played an essential role in the was a kind of clap-hand church. They used
emergence and popularity of Jamaica’s first to have concerts. I was about 12. Every time

international music: ska.
I sang, people would clap and [be] joyful. Most
The Maytals had been around for over a of my songs are coming from the church, not

decade by the time Perry Henzell’s 1972 film, political really, although sometimes people

The Harder They Come, brought reggae and may find it that way too…I was about 13,
the mystique of Jamaican counterculture coming to Kingston, I found this church

to an international audience. The Maytals, called Coptic. That’s where I was for a long,

whose inspirational studio performance of long time, just to know about the truth of

“Sweet and Dandy” was one of the film’s Rastafari.”

most memorable scenes, benefited greatly It was in Trench Town, where Hibbert, then a
from their inclusion in the film and on its barber, met the men who would become his

soundtrack. Subsequent albums for Chris singing partners – Henry “Raleigh” Gordon

Blackwell’s Island Records, Funky Kingston and Nathanial “Jerry” Matthias. “I made a

(1973) and Reggae Got Soul (1976), ensured four-string guitar and practice in the barber
that Toots and the Maytals would be shop, sit under the guinep tree and sing.

standard stock in record shops worldwide I teach them harmony and how to write

and their concert appearances in demand songs, and they teach me how to grow up.”

for decades to come.
After an early dubplate for King Edwards,
Today, the hits from Toots’ catalog are in the Maytals, then known as the Vikings,
any comprehensive review of the history of started working for a host of producers

Jamaican music. More broadly, Rolling Stone including Prince Buster, Leslie Kong, Duke

named Toots Hibbert as one of the Top 100 Reid, Byron Lee and Coxson Dodd, the latter

Singers of all time.
of whom recorded the best of their early

For advanced students of Jamaican music work, anthologized on the essential LP
and culture, Toots Hibbert is the greatest Never Grow Old. “Ska really lift up Jamaica. It

example of the bridge between the traditions was new at the time. After boogie, you have

of the Jamaican revivalist churches and ska…We cut a whole lot of songs [for Dodd].

popular song, a critical nexus in the island’s We didn’t care about the money. Some of
cultural mix. Raised in May Pen, Clarendon, the songs maybe we want to put together

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