In 1969 Toots Hibbert and the Maytals were among Leslie Kong’s steadiest clients at Beverley’s Records. Kong — who had already broken Desmond Dekker internationally — produced a run of sides for the group between 1967 and 1970 that the Guardian would later call “most of their best-known songs.” “Monkey Man” was the one that first registered beyond the island.

The hit

Aimed at a love rival — “I am not your monkey man” — the record paired Hibbert’s pleading tenor with the tight Maytals band: Jackie Jackson on bass, Paul Douglas on drums, Hux Brown and Radcliffe Bryan on guitars. Alexis Petridis, writing in the Guardian after Hibbert’s death, noted that its appearance in the lower reaches of the UK chart was “the first sign of interest outside Jamaica.” The Encyclopedia.com discography places “Monkey Man” in the same Kong session cluster as “Do the Reggay” and “Pressure Drop.”

Second lives

The song outlived its chart run. The Specials’ 1979 cover took it to No. 5 in Britain; Amy Winehouse and the Specials revived it again for the 2009 Comic Relief single, per the Guardian obituary. What began as a Kingston single became a global standard — proof that Hibbert’s songwriting travelled as easily as his voice.

Why it matters

Before Island Records and before The Harder They Come, “Monkey Man” showed that a Maytals 45 could find ears in London. The export market Toots would dominate in the 1970s starts here.

Listen and dig deeper

Sources: The Guardian — “Toots Hibbert’s pure, powerful voice carried reggae to the world” (Alexis Petridis, Sep 12, 2020); The Guardian — “Toots Hibbert obituary” (David Katz, Sep 12, 2020); Encyclopedia.com — Toots and the Maytals; Wikipedia — “Monkey Man” (Toots & the Maytals song).

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.