Frederick Nathaniel “Toots” Hibbert was born on 8 December 1942 in May Pen, Clarendon, the Guardian records — into a Seventh-day Adventist household where he sang in church. Both parents were dead by the time he was 16; after marrying his childhood sweetheart Doreen at 18, he moved to Kingston in the early 1960s, took work in a barber shop in Trench Town and, in 1962, formed a vocal harmony trio with two new friends: Henry “Raleigh” Gordon and Jerry Matthias.
From Vikings to Maytals
The group was first called the Vikings, then the Maytals — partly in tribute to Hibbert’s home town, the Guardian’s David Katz notes. They were a vocal trio in the Melodians mould, cutting harmonies over the ska beat that was pulsing through Kingston dancehalls. The Encyclopedia.com entry records an audition for Clement “Sir Coxsone” Dodd at Studio One in 1962; Lee “Scratch” Perry, then working for Dodd, reportedly urged the producer to sign them. Singles “Hallelujah” and “Fever” followed on Studio One that year, with “Six and Seven Books of Moses” in 1963.
The band behind the voice
What began as three singers became a full band. Katz’s obituary lists the instrumentalists who would define the Maytals sound: bassist Jackie Jackson, drummer Paul Douglas, guitarist Radcliffe “Dougie” Bryan and Hux Brown among them — the session players who would later anchor “Monkey Man,” “Pressure Drop” and “Funky Kingston.” Toots & The Maytals as a recording and touring entity was still a few years away; in 1962 the name on the label was simply the Maytals, and the voice out front was Toots.
Why it matters
Before reggae had a name, before Island Records and before the Harder They Come soundtrack, there was this trio in Trench Town. The gospel grain in Hibbert’s tenor, the group-harmony discipline and the hunger to write — all of it starts here.
Listen and dig deeper
- Browse Toots Hibbert and Toots & The Maytals in the JamaicansMusic library.
- Next on the timeline: ‘Do the Reggay’ and the word reggae (1968).
Sources: The Guardian — “Toots Hibbert obituary” (David Katz, Sep 12, 2020); Encyclopedia.com — Toots and the Maytals; Wikipedia — Toots and the Maytals; Discogs — Toots & The Maytals.
Editor’s note: This entry is part of the JamaicansMusic online museum — a career timeline assembled from the archive. It is dated to the era it documents; every claim is drawn from the linked sources.