Singer 'Toots' his horn, delights crowd

Toots and the Maytals thrill about 700 fans with a hit-filled, two-hour concert.

By PHILIP BOOTH

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 11, 2000

Toots Hibbert, the legendary Jamaican singer credited with giving the reggae genre its name, made a promise early during his show Friday night at Skipper's Smokehouse. The pledge came about six songs into Toots and the Maytals' exuberant set, on a pleasantly breezy summer evening under the moss-draped oaks of the durable north Tampa concert venue.

"Tonight I'm gonna be the teacher, and you're gonna be the students," Hibbert, 53, told about 700 enthusiastic fans, many of whom danced in front of the stage for the duration of a hit-packed performance that stretched to nearly two hours.

The course, given by an educator dressed in leather pants and vest, might have borrowed its title from the rootsy, throbbing '70s single Reggae Got Soul. The tune, given its due by the singer and his seven-piece group (including bass-playing son Hopeton and daughter Leba, one of two back-up vocalists) handily referenced the connection between Caribbean music and R&B.

One could hear that bond in the trickling guitar fills dropped between the off-beat accents of Time Tough, the title track of a definitive 1996 anthology. The piece, like several others, additionally concluded with a fast and furious segment no doubt inspired by Hibbert's childhood experiences singing with Seventh Day Adventist gospel choirs in rural May Pen, Clarendon. "Higher," shouted the son of a Revival Zion minister, as the crowd roared back its in-kind response.

Hibbert's deeply soulful vocals, alternately gritty and mellifluous, were variously reminiscent of Otis Redding, Al Green and Wilson Pickett, and put to fine use on a set list loaded with favorites. Pressure Drop, from 1972's The Harder They Come soundtrack, simmered with its hypnotic, loping beat and only slightly artificial-sounding horn parts played on keyboards. He went a capella for the start of his good-time remake of John Denver's Take Me Home, Country Roads, injected with twangy six-string licks and a sweet organ break.

There were other beloved oldies, too, including Sweet and Dandy, the bouncy Monkey Man, the appropriately titled Funky Kingston and a version of the easygoing Never Get Weary jolted with a bit of rock 'n' roll guitar. Twenty or so fans gyrated on stage next to the band near the end of the show, which concluded with an extended rendition of the classic 54-46, That's My Number.

Hibbert, his declaration to the contrary, came off as less of a teacher than a preacher, delivering his exhortations to an audience of the already converted, including ska kids, blues lovers, jazz devotees and baby boomer supporters of WMNF, 88.5 FM. It's a sermon we're likely to remember for a long while.