Unplugged On Strawberry Hill

For anyone who considers Frederick ‘Toots’ Hibbert to be as valuable a contribution to soul music as he is to reggae, Unplugged On Strawberry Hill will be of great interest. This recording captures Toots & The Maytals and an all-female backing choir playing an acoustic set, with every fret-slide and Otis Redding-like roar caught with crisp quality. Gone are the heavy bass lines and funky rhythm guitars usually associated with reggae. ‘Funky Kingston’ swaps guitar licks for hand-drum slaps, while Toots, noted for singing more about his evangelical Christian upbringing than the Rastafari beliefs surrounding his industry, revels in this naturally gospel-sounding environment.

The accompanying DVD gives a good insight into the history of the band. ‘I don't know too much about Kingston [today],’ says Toots as he looks nostalgically out of a bus window, ‘but in those days, the ghetto was happy.’ The bus pulls up next to a building that used to be a theatre. ‘If you sing here after sermon and you get a clap, you will be number one. If you get no clap, go back to country!’ The following black and white footage shows an acoustic Toots alone with a microphone. Bullish even back then, the roots of injustice motivated hits like ‘54-46’ surface in the gruff power of his voice. Clearly, as interviews with Jimmy Cliff, Marcia Griffiths and Eric Clapton reinforce, Toots is every inch a soul man. ‘Reggae Got Soul’, a suitably brilliant rendition from the acoustic set, has never been truer.