850.) Mon Apr. 1, 2019

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Snub Week

The Song of the Day is:

Toots & The Maytals – “Funky Kingston”

From the album Funky Kingston (1973)

Playing from east to west yeah
I just play from north to south, yeah
I love black America
People keep on asking me for, Funky Kingston!
But I ain’t got none
Somebody take it away from me

Toots Hibbert

According to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, there have been only two reggae acts worth indicting in their 33 year history, Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff. While this is a fine starting point, it hardly closes the book on the genre. In my estimation, the Hall could find worthy candidates in Peter Tosh, Desmond Dekker, Burning Spear, Lee “Scratch” Perry and Dennis Brown. I do, however, think that the Hall’s most glaring reggae omission is Toots & the Maytals, the group that actually coined the term “Reggae” with their 1968 single “Do The Reggay”. Frederick “Toots” Hibbert grew up listening to gospel and soul music, and later emulated the style of Otis Redding. He was one of the early groups performing ska and rocksteady, two precursors to reggae. He formed the original incarnation of the Maytals as a vocal trio, with Raleigh Gordon and Jerry Mathias joining him. Later the band would expand to include instrumentalists. The group had successful hits in “Monkey Man”, “5446 Was My Number” (a song about Hibbert’s one-time marijuana incarceration) and the previously mentioned “Do The Reggay”. Their song “Pressure Drop” was one of reggae’s first hits to reach the States due to its inclusion in the genre-broadening soundtrack from The Harder They Come. Much like Jimmy Cliff and Desmond Dekker, the Maytals career momentum suffered when their producer/promoter Leslie Kong died in 1971. However that didn’t stop their creation of great music. Toots and the Maytals were a top notch reggae band, and being that reggae is a genre that many rock fans start and stop with Bob Marley, exposure by the Hall for the the Maytals would be a terrific boost for the genre. The Maytals, who have been eligible for induction since 1987, have been cited as influences or covered by the Clash, The Police, The Rolling Stones, Amy Winehouse and Sublime.