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The Jumpin' Hot Club's Boss Sounds series steps
up a gear with the legendary Toots and the Maytals.
The concert sees the club's first collaboration
with the Sage Gateshead.
Toots will be promoting his new album True Love
which features such artists as Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Ken
Boothe and Shaggy in new versions of all the Toots classics.
The Maytals and the music
Born in 1945, Frederick Nathaniel Hibbert, better
known as 'Toots', first found his voice in the ecstatic din of the
Jamaican church.
In his early teens, Toots, like so many other 'country
boys', abandoned their tiny hamlets and headed for the bright lights
of the Kingston.
In Kingston, Toots found employment in a barber
shop and impressed passers by with his vocal talents.
Also impressed were Kingston mates Henry 'Raleigh' Gordon and Jerry
Mathais.
The three friends decided they would form a trio with Toots taking
care of the lead.
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| Toots and the Maytals in
the early 60s |
The name of the new group was a reference to his
home town of May Pen - the Maytals.
Skatalites and Studio One
In 1963, the music of the island was no longer imported American
R'n'B and ballads, it was ska; which had evolved out of a fusion
of these two elements, with jazz.
Ska was the music of the Kingston based Skatalites. That same year
the Maytals auditioned at the late Clement "Sir Coxsone"
Dodd's fabled Studio One.
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| Toots: reggae innovator |
With a little help from Coxsone's then A&R man
Lee Perry, the Maytals passed the audition.
Toots and the Maytals were encouraged to go deeper
into themselves and find an original sound.
Toots went back to his gospel roots, and the Maytals
hit with an album's worth of Old Testament-inspired ska.
Leaving Studio One, the Maytals were offered a recording
contract by singer/producer and amateur boxer Cecil "Prince
Buster" Campbell.
Doing time, keeping time
As ska gave way to the slower, cooler Rocksteady
beat in 1966, Toots, served six months in prison for possession
of marijuana.
Toots turned his time behind bars to his advantage, penning the
rocksteady smash '54-46, That's My (prison) Number'.
The birth of 'Reggay'
By 1968, the cool rocksteady sound became faster, brighter and more
danceable. Reggae was born.
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| Toots: Trojan
Soldier |
Toots heralded the new sound with 'Do the Reggay'
advertising 'the new dance, going around the town.' Toots wanted
'to do the Reggay, with you!'
Toots was also gaining exposure in the UK - recordings
from 1969 and '70 were licensed to Trojan records.
Toots on screen
In 1973, Toots and thousands of other Jamaicans, saw themselves
on the big screen in 'The Harder They Come', the first Jamaican
feature film ever made.
The soundtrack LP, along with Bob Marley and the Wailers' two first
albums, was forcing Americans to sit up, and listen to the sounds
from Jamaica.
Record breaking
In 1980, Toots enthusiastically produced the fastest record ever
made, 'Live at the Hammersmith Palais', being recorded, mixed, mastered,
pressed and in shops 24 hours after the show.
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| Toots
in the 21st Century |
The next year saw Toots going solo, winning acclaim
for his Jamaican reworking of Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing."
For over 36 years, Toots has delighted, enlightened,
and inspired with a truckload of wholesome, funky reggae.
Roots, Rock and Reggae
Speaking of the state of Jamaican music today,
Toots says: "Dancehall today is not important. It's not culture,
it's not reggae. It try to put a lot of hip-hop in it, but real
reggae don't have those things.
"Hip-hop don't belong to Jamaica. Real reggae is roots. Reggae
music always be on top. You have to have something with a gospel
feel. It's wicked, you know? It's Roots, Rock, Reggae. The roots
- that's what I am."
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Jumpin' Hot Club in association
with Sage Gateshead presents
Toots and the Maytals
University of Northumbria,
Newcastle
Friday 11th June 7.30pm
£15.00 adv. tel. 0191 2612606
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