Toots wins reggae Grammy
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Observer Reporter
Monday, February 14, 2005
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| Toots at the recent Air Jamaica Jazz & Blues Festival. |
Toots Hibbert, the recording artiste credited with naming reggae, Jamaica's most famous music form, has won the reggae Grammy at the 47th Annual Awards for his 2004 release, True Love.
One of five nominations in the reggae category, True Love edged out competitors including Jimmy Cliff's Black Magic, Sly & Robbie's The Dub Revolutionaries, Steel Pulse's African Holocaust, and Def Jamaica, a compilation of recordings by various current dancehall acts. The announcement was made last night at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles during a pre-recorded segment of the awards show put on by the US Recording Academy. Toots was not present to accept the award.
Considered to be one of the architects of reggae music, Toots began singing and recording in Kingston in 1962 with Raleigh Gordon and Jerry Matthias as The Maytals. Their first recordings, done at Clement 'Sir Coxsone' Dodd's Studio One, were instant hits, and for much of the ska era Toots and the Maytals dominated the charts with number one hits.
After their smash hit Bam Bam, the festival song of the year in 1966, the group seemed set to dominate the world with their infectious beats when Toots was arrested on a ganja charge. Upon his release nearly two years later, Toots released 54/46, the story of his encounter with the law that is widely regarded as one of the greatest rocksteady hits.
Notable songs like Do The Reggay, Monkey Man, Sweet and Dandy, Pressure Drop and Pomp and Pride came next, followed in the 1970s by a series of world tours and a few critically acclaimed albums.
True Love, released in 2004, is Toots' first release in two years and marks the fourth time his work has been nominated for the prestigious award. The album is a collection of his classic hits, re-recorded as collaborations with well-known international artistes such as Shaggy, Bunny Wailer, Bonnie Raitt, No Doubt, Marcia Griffiths and Willie Nelson.
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