Toots Hibbert, beloved reggae star, dies at 77

Against a backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic, ongoing racial unrest and an upcoming election, Grammy season kicks off in earnest this week.Born on land originally settled by British colonists as a plantation, Frederick Nathaniel Hibbert named the vocal trio he founded with Ralphus “Raleigh” Gordon and Nathaniel “Jerry” Matthias after his home district of May Pen. Hibbert had met them shortly after moving 35 miles east to the Trenchtown neighborhood of Kingston as a young teen.

There the three connected with early recording studio entrepreneur Clement “Coxsone” Dodd, who had an at-the-ready studio band called the Skatalites to back vocalists on recordings. Not yet a hot commodity, Dodd’s label Studio One issued a series of bouncy Maytals ska singles, dense with brass and that archetypal offbeat rhythm, that were hits in Kingston.

“My influences when I was coming up in the business were Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson and Otis Redding,” Hibbert told The Times in 1989. “I’d heard them on the radio in Jamaica and fell in love with the voices in the songs. I started to sing and people would tell me I would sound like Ray Charles or Otis Redding, so I figured these guys are my brothers.”

Hibbert was one of a posse of young Kingston crooners and bandleaders working the party circuit at the time. Alongside kindred spirits including the Wailers , saxophonist Tommy McCook and singer Jimmy Cliff, Hibbert and the Maytals starting in 1964 banged out songs at a fast clip, many in single takes. He had a knack for catchy singalong choruses.The Maytals’ 1966 hit “Bam Bam” helped codify a phrase that has since become part of the DNA of reggae and dancehall.

His urgent, joyous 1973 album “Funky Kingston” led the way. The work captured the Maytals in full reggae-funk mode, mixing Kingston rhythms with expansive, Kuti- and James Brown-inspired proto-disco. In addition to the title track and “Pressure Drop,” the album saw Hibbert exploring crossover material, including a version of John Denver’s “Country Road” and Richard Berry’s “Louie Louie.

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