Songs For Your Day

It’s probably not inaccurate to say that for most Americans Bob Marley and the Wailers are the most recognizable reggae group.  I would even hazard that Marley and his band are the only reggae artist many Americans have ever heard of.  As I’ve written before, this is an incredible shame, because discovering that reggae has its own unique history distinct from just one artist was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

To anyone who feels well-described by the above paragraph (as I used to be, I assure you), your first assignment is to pick up the landmark soundtrack album The Harder They Come.  The first feature film made in Jamaica, The Harder They Come’s greatest cultural legacy is the superb soundtrack, released in 1973.  With stellar tracks from Jimmy Cliff (the film’s star), Scotty, The Melodians, The Slickers, and Desmond Dekker, it introduced the world at large to some of the best music being made in the world.

In addition to the above-named artists, Toots and the Maytals had two of their most popular songs featured on the soundtrack, “Pressure Drop” and “Sweet and Dandy,” easily two of the most energetic and indispensable songs I’ve ever heard.  This is not hyperbole.  The more I listened to just these two songs, the more I needed Toots and the Maytals in my life.

Originally just a vocal trio called The Maytals, the group decided to fully incorporate its studio band in 1972, changing their name to Toots and the Maytals, giving deference to their main songwriter and spirited frontman Frederick “Toots” Hibbert.  Hibbert is the man to thank for pretty much the whole genre, introducing its very eponym in the 1968 song “Do the Reggay.”  Rolling Stone ranked him as the 71st greatest singer of all time.  Toots and the Maytals still hold the record for most number one hits in Jamaica, with an astonishing thirty-one.  The Random House Dictionary even references Toots in its definition of Reggae.

1973’s Funky Kingston was the first truly official Toots and the Maytals album, and it stands to this day as the group’s most seminal work, perhaps truly as the definition of reggae.  Thanks to a little tweaking by Island Records founder Chris Blackwell shortly after its initial release, Funky Kingston boasts some of The Maytals’ greatest hits: the roaring “Funky Kingston” and the absolutely unbelievably good “Pressure Drop.”  It also features Toots and co. outperforming John Denver on their cover of his “Country Roads,” and gives the world one of the unconditionally greatest songs of all time in the Toots-penned “Pomp and Pride.”

Maybe Toots’ lyrics weren’t political enough to be considered as significant at large like Marley’s lyrics, but The Maytals’ music outshines The Wailers consistently.  I’ve never listened to a Bob Marley album and experienced the same kind of stupidly innocent joy I feel when I listen to Toots and the Maytals.  “Pomp and Pride,” like “Pressure Drop” or “Sweet and Dandy,” is a simple, universal song with a melody immediately pulsating with the heartbeat of happiness.  You can’t help but play the song on repeat, opening your ears to it as soon as you hear the knock on the door of the opening drumbeats.  Once you let the song in, it never stops, with The Maytals’ backing vocals swirling effortlessly around their charismatic frontman’s archetypal voice, the rhythm driving forward through every verse and bridge.  Listen, then listen again, and be glad you have.