2020 Obit: Toots Hibbert, frontman of The Maytals

Subject: Obit: Toots!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Sep 20 - 07:01 PM

Of And the Maytalls fame. Saw him in concert in the early 80's, wow.

Subject: RE: Obit: Toots!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Sep 20 - 08:06 PM

Please give more information than this, it's incomprehensible at this point. Thanks!

Subject: RE: Obit: Toots!
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Sep 20 - 08:19 PM

At a guess I think it means that Toots is dead.

Subject: RE: Obit: Toots!
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Sep 20 - 08:20 PM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toots_and_the_Maytals

Subject: RE: Obit: Toots!
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Sep 20 - 08:20 PM

And if you have already booked tickets for his May 2021 tour you are probably due a refund.

Subject: RE: Obit: Toots!
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 12 Sep 20 - 08:33 PM

I understood the opening post the way it was.

Subject: RE: 2020 Obit: Toots Hibbert, frontman of The Maytals
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Sep 20 - 09:58 PM

I didn't. So I've amended the subject line.

Subject: RE: 2020 Obit: Toots Hibbert, frontman of The Maytals
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 13 Sep 20 - 11:34 AM

BBC News: Obit Toots Hibbert
I learned of this news very quickly as my nephew's group had toured with/supported "Toots & the Maytals".

R.I.P.

Subject: RE: 2020 Obit: Toots Hibbert, frontman of The Maytals
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 Sep 20 - 05:28 PM

Obit, Toots, of Toots and the Maytals [misspelled] ... Seemed clear to me. Was not being intentionally opaque.

Subject: RE: 2020 Obit: Toots Hibbert, frontman of The Maytals
From: Helen
Date: 13 Sep 20 - 05:44 PM

Hi Mrrzy, I knew what you were saying. I'm not a huge reggae fan but I've heard of Toots and the Maytals. Probably heard a lot of their songs without realising who it was.

RIP Mr Toots, sir.

Subject: RE: 2020 Obit: Toots Hibbert, frontman of The Maytals
From: Mrrzy
Date: 14 Sep 20 - 08:57 AM

Toots and the Maytals were one of my first not-Bob-Marley reggae bands. I might have been at a Toots concert when news came that Bob Marley had died, and the whole band is like Sorry, we aren't playing our stuff, switching to only Bob Marley, and the whole audience was like, Fine.
My sister who was living in NYC with a Belizan at the time [and who has since emigrated to Tasmania] sent me some Tooys tapes when I was still living at home, so he (Toots) was one of the first musicians whose work I encountered not as part of my parents' records.

Subject: RE: 2020 Obit: Toots Hibbert, frontman of The Maytals
From: gillymor
Date: 14 Sep 20 - 09:21 AM

Leading into at least one of the commercials of the Packers-Viking game yesterday they played "Pressure Drop". I was introduced to his music, well, Reggae in general, through the wonderful Jamaican-produced movie "The Harder They Come" which starred Jimmy Cliff. Here's a clip of Toots and the Maytals doing Sweet and Dandy from the film-Sweet and Dandy. Pressure Drop is also on the excellent sound track album.

Subject: RE: 2020 Obit: Toots Hibbert, frontman of The Maytals
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 14 Sep 20 - 11:23 AM

At last the petty bickering spoiling the start of this obit,
is being replaced with due respect for such an inspirational musical influencer as Toots...

Provincial 1970s white teenage Brits like me were properly introduced to Reggae
by notable cosmopolitan big city punk bands like The Clash,
and the crucial Rock Against Racism youth movement.

Since then, my love for Reggae is more deeply felt than for Folk,
and has also outlasted punk...

One strange paradox we needed to get our heads round,
was our teenage mortal enemies, the Skinheads,
started off in the 1960s
inspired by Jamaican music and gang fashions...

But there was some positive reconciliation when the late 70s Two Tone music movement
brought together black kids, punks, and non racist younger Skins
devoted to Ska...

The enemy nationalist Skins were then stuck in their own reviled OI music ghetto...

Reggae is seriously that important to my genration of Brits...

Subject: RE: 2020 Obit: Toots Hibbert, frontman of The Maytals
From: Jeri
Date: 14 Sep 20 - 11:45 AM

I was introduce by the movie "The Harder They Come".

Subject: RE: 2020 Obit: Toots Hibbert, frontman of The Maytals
From: Helen
Date: 14 Sep 20 - 01:55 PM

I didn't know that about the Skinheads, pfr. Thanks for the history lesson. Maybe you should change your moniker to punkfolkreggaerocker?

I just bought a CD by Jimmy Cliff because I love the song I Can See Clearly Now. I love it musically but especially as an inspirational song because it is hopeful, moving from darkness into light.

I say I'm not a huge Reggae fan, but I do love a lot of the songs. They are part of the musical fabric of my life, but I don't have a lot of it in my music collection.

Is it Reggae with a capital "R"? I wasn't sure.

Subject: RE: 2020 Obit: Toots Hibbert, frontman of The Maytals
From: gillymor
Date: 14 Sep 20 - 02:50 PM

Helen, you might enjoy the Harder They
Come sound track. Some classic (R)reggae and plenty of Jimmy Cliff. Helluva good flick too.

Subject: RE: 2020 Obit: Toots Hibbert, frontman of The Maytals
From: fat B****rd
Date: 14 Sep 20 - 04:48 PM

I'm late coming to this. I played my Toots and The Maytals double cd a couple of days before the bad news.
A long time ago "Funky Kingston" was used in a Play For Today type production in a sort of office party scene.
It's still along with many Toots tracks a huge favourite of mine.
RIP indeed Toots.

Subject: RE: 2020 Obit: Toots Hibbert, frontman of The Maytals
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 14 Sep 20 - 05:24 PM

It wasn't much more than a few weeks ago,
I read a very optimistic interview from Toots promoting his new CD...

Subject: RE: 2020 Obit: Toots Hibbert, frontman of The Maytals
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 15 Sep 20 - 07:34 AM

I was a skinhead and my top music, always and still, is Jamaican music. I don't even say reggae, I just say Jamaican music because "reggae" evokes so much many misrepresentations. It's just a continuum of music. From Revival to the work songs, mento, boogie woogie, the ska, rudie beat, john crow skank, flyers, rockers, steppers, cool 'n' deadly, rub a dub... it never ends! Real Rock riddim, Stalag, Bobby Bobylon, Answer, Heavenless, Bam Bam, Boops, Hot Milk, African Beat! Toots' "Do the Reggay" from 1968 is completely different from "Sweet and Dandy" in 1969. And by the time Bob Marley's touring band froze "reggae" in time, it was something else! Skinheads know the Jamaican oldies better than any other non-Jamaicans. "Skinhead" means "old school JA music fan." Don't let anybody tell you different. Unless you think "Muslims = terrorists" then you know how funny it sounds to a Muslim if a non-Muslim insists she's a terrorist. The style of "Sweet and Dandy" is called "skinhead reggae" in honor of the foreign fans. After 1970 that style ended. After '73 they (Blackwell) had produced Bob Marley for the rock crowd and hippies... got people confused about the values... RIP Toots. He brought the church gospel style of singing while others tried to be crooners. If you want to hear good old time gospel singing, go listen to "John and James". Come for the singing, stay for Lloyd Knibb's drumming.

Subject: RE: 2020 Obit: Toots Hibbert, frontman of The Maytals
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Sep 20 - 08:24 AM

1977 I was in a teenage punk band..
There was a gang of older scary hairy greasy bikers on the fringe of our scene.
Amongst the least violent of these wannabe outlaw hells angels was a petty dope dealer.
One night our band crashed at his flat.
I was surprised to find he had the most amazing colossal 'reggae' LP collection of unknown obscurities.
Turns out his secret was he'd been a skinhead nearly a decade earlier...