It has been very, very confusing trying to sort out the discography of Toots & the Maytals, and that is extremely unfortunate. It has ill-served the group, interrupting the chronology of their releases, thus scrambling their importance as iconic, historical figures in music history.

It was the Maytals who released a single in 1968 entitled “Do the Reggay”, thus spawning the name for an entire genre. The band released their first Jamaican album all the way back in 1963! In 1972, a full year before Bob Marley’s Wailers released “Catch a Fire” to international acclaim, Toots & the Maytals released the first version of the album “Funky Kingston,” a short collection of eight tracks released on Dragon Records, an Island Records subsidiary. The title track proved to be one of Reggae’s strongest, funkiest and most enduring songs, but with only four songs per side and limited distribution in Great Britain, it went largely unnoticed.

In 1975, this album would eventually be completely reformatted, keeping only three of the original eight songs, and then fleshed out with six songs from the Maytals’ second international release, “In the Dark”.  It also added “Pressure Drop” to the songlist, a fabulous single that had already been released on the soundtrack for “Harder They Come”. This mess still causes most fans to be confused and even frustrated, giving the false impression that the band had little material and made redundant albums. Nothing could be further from the truth.

“In the Dark” is the second ‘international’ album released by Toots and the Maytals. Chronologically, it pre-dates the revamped “Funky Kingston” album by more than a year, and it provided more than half of the songs on that album. Therefore, I take exception to critics who have lauded the latter album while ignoring “In the Dark”, which, from a historical and/or chronological perspective, is the true classic. 

Toots and Maytals approached reggae from a completely different angle than their contemporary competition, the Wailers. A primary difference is that the Maytals were not overtly political. They were funkier, singing with a harder edge but intently focused on writing extraordinarily melodic songs. Lead singer Freddie Hibbert has all of the power and finesse of a Jamaican Otis Redding.  “Time Tough,” “Got to Be There,” and “Love Is Gonna Let Me Down” all convey the direct connection between southern soul music and Jamaican reggae. Songs like “I See You” and “Take a Look in the Mirror” (both available on this album only) are ballads with bite, fragile melodies that never sound corny or saccharine, due mostly to the incredible power of Freddie Hibbert. Perhaps most extraordinary (and also available on this album only) is “54-46 Was My Number”, an intense song about a stick-up and served jail term that somehow soars with a melody as free as the protagonist.

If you buy “In the Dark” and already have a copy of “The Harder They Come” (as you well should), then you only need to find three fantastic tracks that appear on “Funky Kingston”. Make sure to get the title track, “Pomp and Pride”, and the band’s excellent, whacky cover of “Louie Louie”. From there forward, the band’s story and discography become much easier to follow. Bob Marley may be the most popular reggae artist, but for consistency, Toots & the Maytals are at the very least on par with him, and absolutely essential to anyone with even a passing interest in crucial reggae.

Feature Tracks:

Got to Be There

In the Dark

Having a Party

Time Tough

I See You

Take a Look in the Mirror

Take Me Home, Country Roads

Fever

Love's Gonna Walk Out on Me

Revolution

54-46

Sailing On

September 1974 – Billboard Did Not Chart