LOS ANGELES (Island/UMe Records) - Ironically, one of the pioneers of reggae, Toots & The Maytals, may reach their widest audience ever in 2004 thanks to a new album featuring contemporary rockers, awakening a fresh audience to their early classics. Among the latter is one of the greatest live albums in the history of reggae.
LIVE (Island/UMe), released June 15, 2004, marks the reissue and expansion of that legendary 1980 original.
Augmented by the previously unreleased "I Love You So" and "Reggae Got Soul" from the same September 1980 concert at London's Hammersmith Palais, LIVE finds Toots and company at their exuberant best on "Sweet And Dandy," "Pressure Drop," "Funky Kingston," "Monkey Man," "Get Up, Stand Up," "Hallelujah," "Time Tough" and an amazing 9-minute take on their 1968 signature tune "54-46 Was My Number." The release also restores the original LP artwork and adds an essay by reggae historian David Katz.
LIVE arrives on the heels of the acclaimed TRUE LOVE, a star-studded album partnering Toots & The Maytals with Willie Nelson, Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt, Jeff Beck, No Doubt, Bootsy Collins, Keith Richards, The Roots, Ben Harper, Ryan Adams and others.
But for the incomparable vintage concert versions of many of those tracks only LIVE captures Toots & The Maytals at their zenith. The album also boasts another distinction, earning a Guinness Book of World Records designation as the fastest phonograph record ever manufactured (it was mixed, pressed and in London-area shops the day after the show).
Led by Frederick "Toots" Hibbert, The Maytals are credited with giving the embryonic Jamaican genre ska its unique sound - gospel and soul vocals sung to a horn-driven Jamaican beat.
In fact, in the late '60s, Toots was the first to use the word "reggae" in a song title with "Do The Reggay," thus naming the entire genre. Their music influenced not only most of the musicians in their native Jamaica but many around the world, including Aswad, The Specials and The Clash.
Even with the advent of harder-edged reggae, their "Pressure Drop," heard on the soundtrack of the definitive reggae film THE HARDER THEY COME and covered by The Clash, became a huge hit on both sides of the Atlantic and has since become a rocksteady standard. "Monkey Man" became one of the signature songs of the two-tone ska revival in turn-of-the-'80s England (including a cover by The Specials).
By 1971, they had not only become the biggest act on the island, they were also (thanks to signing with Island) international stars.
In 1981, just a year after LIVE, the group broke up, but in the early '90s Toots launched a new Maytals which continues to record and tour the world today.
