Toots & The Maytals
Gospel fire, country grit and Jamaican rhythm in one of reggae’s most physical voices. “Do the Reggay” helped name the music; “Pressure Drop,” “54-46” and decades of stage work made Toots Hibbert impossible to contain in one era.
Frederick “Toots” Hibbert formed The Maytals with Henry “Raleigh” Gordon and Nathaniel “Jerry” Matthias in the early 1960s. Their church-shaped harmonies and Toots’ grainy, athletic lead voice moved through ska and rocksteady before “Do the Reggay” put the new word on record in 1968. The song named a music already forming around many musicians and studios; it did not make one group its sole inventor. “54-46 That’s My Number,” “Pressure Drop,” “Sweet and Dandy,” “Monkey Man” and “Funky Kingston” carried humor, hardship and release without separating spirit from dance. Toots remained a ferocious performer for decades. The Maytals won Best Reggae Album for True Love and, after Hibbert’s death in 2020, for Got to Be Tough.