#BTColumn – Remembering Toots Hibbert

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of the Barbados Today.

by Graham Clarke

My wife woke up last Sunday morning (September 13) reflecting on the news that her compatriot, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, performer, recording artiste, Grammy-award winner and a true Jamaican icon – Frederick Nathaniel Toots Hibbert, had recently passed away.

I returned home from my early morning jog to find her in the kitchen preparing her traditional Jamaican breakfast as  she listened to her iPhone blaring (I thought a bit irreverently for our usual Sunday morning quiet time) with the sounds of  vintage reggae from Toots & the Maytals.

It was her way of paying tribute to a fellow-countryman, the legendary Toots Hibbert. She called me over to view the YouTube video she was watching and proceeded to give me a brief history lesson on the life and work of this legendary artiste.

I have to say, that I didn’t pay much attention and the video didn’t quite pique my interest at the time. Though I was aware of some of the songs she was playing, I was not familiar with the name and face of this Jamaican artiste. In addition, I was in the middle of listening to something else on my laptop, and therefore, was not as attentive
as I could have been.

I acknowledge that now, with deepest apologies to my wife and to Jamaica for my obvious lack of knowledge and appreciation of the history and development of reggae
in that country.

If only I had known, I would not have missed the name and face of Toots Hibbert. For although I am an avid music lover and have a deep appreciation for the expression of almost every musical genre there is, I am certainly not an authority on the subject.

My wife then issued a challenge to me. She asked, why don’t I write a feature article on this Jamaican artiste for my Facebook Page – The Villager Transformation Series – which I recently launched and have dedicated to promoting the best of village life and village people in the Caribbean, by sharing stories of transformational figures and events that emerge from the villages across the region.

In response, I asked her what she thought the storyline was and returned to my computer to finish up an assignment.

Later, as I reflected on her question, I thought I would take up her challenge and do some research to see if there was indeed a story that I could find about Toots Hibbert. I then realized that had I taken the time to listen, I would have been schooled on his legendary contribution to Reggae – indeed of his pioneering work to build the art form.  Hibbert’s 1968 song Do the Reggay is widely credited as the genesis of the genre name reggae.

Had I listened attentively, I would have heard the story of Toots’ rise from his humble beginnings in the rural village of May Pen, in the parish of Clarendon in Jamaica, (which coincidentally is the birthplace of my maternal great grandfather) to his exploits on the global stage.

2005 Grammy Award winning artiste, Hibbert also appeared in the ground-breaking Jamaican film, The Harder They Come. I would also have heard of his move to Trench Town (the hometown of the Great Bob Marley) when he became an orphan at just eleven years old, and how he ultimately influenced and even transformed a generation and a nation through his music.

The more I read about and listened to the music of Toots Hibbert, the more I realized that even if his name and face were unfamiliar to me, I knew him all along. I grew up
hearing his music.

I was introduced to Toots as a young boy growing up in a small rural village in Barbados. I was just ten years old, when he released one of his trademark songs Sweet
and Dandy in 1969.

The same song which his band later played and sung in that epic film – The Harder They Come, which featured the music of my favourite Jamaican reggae artiste – Jimmy Cliff. “Sweet and Dandy” was the first song I remember hearing, blaring through my village from my father’s newly bought Blaupunkt radiogram.

It was a distinctive, rhythmic and catchy song, and the words “Sweet and Dandy” – which are the only words of the song I remember, stuck in my head.

Whatever those words may have meant to the adults in the village – to me as a 10-year-old – they were simply and literally, sweet and dandy! Every Sunday evening my father would ‘light up’ the village with tunes blaring from his radiogram and many of the villagers would gather in front of our house singing, dancing, and enjoying the music.

Toots’ song was not just a favourite of mine, but of the villagers as well. It enjoyed unlimited air play in our house. Those Sunday evening sessions singing and dancing in the street were moments in the village when everybody seemed to forget all their troubles. (Quote from my recent book – Dying to Experience the Supernatural, chapter 6).

But Toots’ impact went beyond my little village to the entertainment industry in Barbados which at the time (the late sixties and early seventies) was experimenting with the introduction of our own distinctive musical sound of ‘Spouge’ – a fusion of Jamaican ska (which Toots and his band the Maytals perfected) with Trinidadian calypso.

It was a style of Barbadian music popularized by our own – the late Jackie Opel who himself lived in Jamaica in the 1960s having been recruited by Byron Lee and the Dragonaires.

He was a member of the Skatalites band for many years. Jackie Opel, who was known as the “Jackie Wilson of Jamaica’ is credited with influencing the musical style of many Jamaican artistes including the late Bob Marley. Anyone with a modicum of understanding and appreciation for music in the Caribbean, would be hard-pressed not to hear the influence that Toots’ music had on our own popular Barbadian spouge band of the 1970s – The Draytons Two. They were known for their own unique style of syncretic spouge – the raw spouge, but to me, they also had a tinge of similarity with the sound and style of Toots’. They even recorded one of Toots’ songs – The Six and Seven Books of Moses which was first released in 1963.

Toots’ music was deeply spiritual. I know this may sound like an imposition to many, but the style of music (ska) which he practiced was influenced heavily by church and religious traditions across the Caribbean.

Hibbert himself recorded output includes Hallelujah (1963), which reflects his Christian upbringing. Hibbert’s parents were both strict Seventh-day Adventist preachers, so like many popular secular artistes around the world, he grew up singing gospel music in a church choir.

He was also known to write about Rastafarian religious themes. Not only in his written works was that religious influence evident, but in his spoken words as well. In an interview in 2016, Hibbert said that Pressure Drop his popular 1968 recording, was a song about karmic justice. “It’s a song about revenge, but in the form of karma: If you do bad things to innocent people, then bad things will happen to you”.

Having researched Toots’ story, I am now a permanent member of his fan club – not only because of his music, but because of his moving and amazing life story.

I have always been attracted to people who many would consider to be “underdogs”, because I believe they occupy a special place in the heart of God. Toots could have been considered the typical “underdog” – one who was unlikely to make it because of circumstances.

He overcame the death of his parents at the tender age of eleven, and he survived a sixteen-month prison sentence after a drug charge for marijuana when he was in his early twenties.

His band members were waiting for him when he exited those prison gates and fittingly renamed the Maytals – ‘Toots and the Maytals’ as an honour to him. His prison number 54-46 became the title of another one of his hits – converting a negative in his life to something positive.

His God-given talent and competence created space for him to shine, and to become one of the greatest musical talents on the global stage. As a performer he was riveting. He held nothing back and left everything on the stage after each performance. His soulful vocal style has been compared to Otis Redding, and led him to be named by Rolling Stone as one of the 100 Greatest Singers of all time.

The irreverence of COVID-19 has robbed us as Caribbean people of honouring our outstanding citizens who have passed, in ways that we have grown accustomed to over the years.

Too many of them have been laid to rest during the last six months of this pandemic, without the necessary public recognition and community outpouring befitting their status – not just at a regional and national level, but at a village and community level as well. Death in the Caribbean is now becoming a private affair. Some may argue that this is the new normal and a healthy corrective to the excesses of the past.

While that may be true to some extent, we have to be careful not to over-correct as a society and must find new and creative ways of preserving our Caribbean tradition of celebrating and even venerating our fallen heroes (local, national and regional) without losing that social consciousness and opportunity to teach the necessary life lessons to generation next. Perhaps that’s why Toots’ passing has gone by almost without notice across the Caribbean region.

Or maybe, many people were like me – unaware of the real story behind this global icon who influenced his generation and changed the culture of a nation for
generations to come.

In that sense, I feel like his music – old and vintage as it is – will live on forever. Earlier this year, Reggae historian Roger Steffens said this, “Toots is one of the last living members of the pantheon – of the giants – the immortals (emphasis mine) – the people who were there before there was a ‘there”.

There is a common view held by many that nothing of this earth will survive in the New Heaven or New Jerusalem which according to Revelation 21 (NKJV), God has prepared for His People. But Revelation 21:24 also says that “. . . the kings of this earth will bring their glory and honour into it.”]

Based on that Scripture, one of the greatest bible teachers I have ever heard (Dr. Roy Clements) suggests that the best of this world will survive and be part of the New Community. If something is perfect, there will be no need for God to re-create or redeem it.

I think Toots’ pioneering musical creations come close to that definition of perfection. I owe my understanding of the Book of Revelation to Roy Clements, and therefore share his view of that verse of Scripture quoted above.

As a Christian from the Caribbean, it is hard to imagine a Heaven that does not have music, and it is even harder to conceive of a Heaven without reggae. Bob Marley may have perfected it, but it was Toots who created its genesis and breathed life into it.

It is on that basis that I feel there is a special place reserved for the pioneering creative work of this outstanding artiste – Toots Hibbert, in the New Community which God has prepared for His people from every nation, every language and yes, every tribe on the earth. Toots was truly a king (even if one without honour) of this earth when it comes to music, and reggae in particular.

As Tina Turner would say, he was simply the best! For me, Frederick Nathaniel Toots Hibbert will always be that distinctive and iconic voice in a ten-year old’s ear, reverberating with the simple words sweet and dandy!

Graham Clarke is an Arthur, and Executive Director of the Barbados Coalition of Service Industries (BCSI).