Time Tough

It seems the dreadful COVID has stolen another icon from our midst, so I am here with the Grief Assistance Materials.

Most people think Reggae began and ended with Bob Marley's short-but-spectacular life, but there were other architects with blueprints who built an edifice just as lasting.

Reading all the myriad tribute screeds this afternoon, the unifying factor is that this guy was a pioneer's pioneer and may have even invented the term "Reggae," in spirit and likely literally.

I think about how many concerts he played in a career spanning over 50 years, and how many people to whom he brought an ineluctable joy over those decades.

He first formed the Maytals in 1961, and by 1968 they were the leading band in Jamaica. His song "Do the Reggay," from that year, is thought to have marked the beginnings of the use of that word to describe the music.

The music that, in the 1970s, officially took over the Earth. And perhaps its greatest global ambassador was Toots Hibbert, who passed last night at 77 after a lifetime at the forefront of it all.

Obviously this leaves a tremendous void and we are all devastated by the demise of such a legendary figure, so to properly mourn we are firing up a delicious 40-year-old set that only saw the light of day last year, as part of a 130-installment series posted on one of the hidden bootleg trackers showcasing the early-1980s work of an also-legendary live sound guy based in the SF Bay Area.

Toots and The Maytals

Old Waldorf

San Francisco, CA

5.20.1980

01 Pressure Drop

02 Funky Kingston

03 Get Up

04 My Love Is So Strong

05 Treating Me Bad

06 54-46, That's My Number

07 Daddy

08 Reggae Got Soul

Total time: 1:10:52

Toots Hibbert - vocals

Henry "Raleigh" Gordon - vocals

Nathaniel "Jerry" Mathias - vocals

Winston Wright - organ

Hux Brown - guitar

Harold Butler - piano & clavinet

Jackie Jackson - bass

Carl Harvey - guitar

Paul Douglas - drums

Larry McDonald - percussion

soundboard source live-matrixed with stage mics by the engineer for this show, the legendary Terry Hammer

#106 in the amazing THTP series assembled by Teetering

these are 48K files

443 MB FLAC/September 2020 archive link

I shall return on Monday with, that's right, the 600th (!!!) post to this delightfully ridiculous page, so stay tuned.

And of course we mourn the passing of Toots Hibbert, the man who showed that Reggae Got Soul and helped bring what was then a brand-new sound to all the furthest corners of the globe.--J.

12.8.1942 - 9.11.2020