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 Having discussed
the many threads of mento woven through the Bob
Marley and The Wailers story, you may ask, was there there any mento in the
story of
Toots and the Maytals? When you think of Toots, ska, reggae,
soul, funk, gospel and even American country music may come to mind, but
probably not mento. But (although not as many as for The Wailers) there are a
few threads of mento found in the earlier years of the Toots and The
Maytals story.
Although Fredrick "Toots" Hibbert had a
church-born soul-gospel styled singing voice, his backing singers, Nathaniel
"Jerry" Mathias and Raleigh Gordon had more of a country sound than anyone
in The Wailers. And some of Toots and the Maytals material was more rural in
overall sound than The Wailers diverse, but urban repertoire. This was
especially true of some of the Maytals greatest recordings.
In 1964, they released a single,
Little Flea, a ska cover of
Lord Flea's popular mento song. That would be the
only mento cover the Maytals would record, as another ska single released
that same year, Dog War, (also know as "Broadway
Jungle") was not the mento song Dog War Inna
Mathews Lane (recorded by such mento artists as Lord Fly and
Lord Power.)
In 1966, Toots and The Maytals released the
original version of Bam Bam. (They would record
it at least 5 more times throughout the years, the most recent remake, with
Shaggy, in 2005.) The original is a beloved track -- a festival winner --
but is it really reggae? The beat is not reggae, and consider the
instrumentation: it opens with pre-Rastafari hand drums and acoustic rhythm
guitar. A strong argument could be made that this is a mento music. The later
recordings of this song moved closer to reggae in beat and arrangement.
In 1969 came the crucial
Sweet and Dandy. This is not a mento song, nor is it cover of a mento
song. But the theme, a well observed account of a rural wedding, could have
been inspired by not one, but two mento songs by Chin's
Calypso Sextet, "I Visited a Wedding"
and "Food Wedding". Like the
Toots track, the Chin's songs present a detailed, slice-of-life
description of the subject, the former concentrating on the ceremony and the
later on the food served. On an unrelated
mento note, 1960s mento artist
Denzil Laing
plays percussion on this track, as he did for many top reggae acts as a
member of The Dynamites.
Pomps and Pride
was released in 1972. A great reggae hit, yet a conventional reggae
rhythm is not evident. I'm not proposing that the music is mento, but there is something country about this
unique track. Perhaps that is what attracted
The Jolly Boys who did do a mento
cover version of it in 1977. (Once again, 1960s mento artist
Denzil Laing
is plays percussion
on this Toots and The Maytals track.)
See also:
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