This Sunday felt like one where we could all do with a little pick me up, so we turned to Toots and one of the most spiritually uplifting albums we own.
Led by Toots Hibbert, the Maytals had been regular hit makers in the 1960s, recording for the iconic Beverley's, Studio One and Trojan labels amongst others. A raw and rocking outfit, the band were high on rabble-rousing grooves and primed to reach audiences outside of the Caribbean. They featured in the cult 1972 Jamaican crime film The Harder They Come, scene-stealing as the film’s studio band, with their 'Sweet and Dandy' and 'Pressure Drop' singles proving to be huge standouts on the acclaimed soundtrack. Reggae’s profile was on the ascension and Toots & the Maytals were very much at the front of the charge. Interestingly, the band’s 'Do the Reggay' is often cited as the first popular song to use the word "reggae" as part of the genre's development.
Confusingly, Funky Kingston is actually the name of two albums by Toots and The Maytals, released initially in 1973 in Jamaica and the United Kingdom on Dragon Records - a subsidiary of Island Records - then issued two years later with the same cover and title on Mango Records in the USA. The second edition was actually compiled from earlier Maytal’s albums, preserving only the title track alongside ‘Louie Louie’ and ‘Pomp and Pride’. Widely hailed by music critics as a remarkable achievement for reggae, with the prominent Lester Bangs announcing it as “perfection” in Stereo Review.Funky Kingston retains all of the Maytals muscular rhythms and stage-earned tightness, full of humour and grounded in rural Jamaican sensibilities. Their playfulness is perhaps best illustrated on the glorious extended cover of the Kingsmen's ‘Louie Louie’, an up-tempo rendering of screams and wails and dancefloor energy. Similarly the titular ‘Funky Kingston’ is an iconic groover, locking into staccato polyrhythms and strutting along for five and a half relentless minutes. An irrepressible feel good cut with Toots delivering fiery sermons and wailing exhortations; a voice as arresting and emotive as anyone recording at the time. The other vocal contributions can’t be underestimated either, with Jerry Matthias and Raleigh Gordon providing some beautifully spiritual harmonies across the album, especially on ‘Pomp and Pride’ and the closing ‘It Was Written Down’.
Both editions of the album document working-class Jamaica in the 60s, authentic voices describing financial disparity and an uncertain future. Above all else, Funky Kingston celebrates one of the country's creative peaks with a melding of rock ‘n’ roll looseness, reggae’s rhythms and Motown-soaked soul. Pure good vibe exuberance.
