Toots Hibbert
In the pantheon of Reggae gods, there surely will be an elevated place for Frederick “Toots” Hibbert. In my mind, he would be revered as Apollo to Bob Marley’s Zeus. I’ll never forget watching, “The Harder They Come,” the 1972 Jamaican film starring Jimmy Cliff as a gangster turned reggae star. The stand-out tunes, in an album of classic songs, came from Toots and the Maytals — “Pressure Drop” and “Sweet and Dandy.”
Hibbert went on to compose reggae anthem “Funky Kingston” and give the world’s greatest reinterpretation of the old John Denver song, “Country Road.”
If I ever got around to composing a list of my Top 10 favorite bands of all time, Toots and the Maytals would be on it. Therefore, it was with great frustration that I attended a long-scheduled social engagement Saturday night rather than go down to the Dominion Riverrock Festival on the James River to listen to Toots Hibbert and his band.
Perhaps it’s just as well that I didn’t make it because I don’t know what kind of blood lust would have overcome me when some lunkhead tossed a Vodka bottle, hitting Hibbert square in the head, causing profuse bleeding and ending the concert. What a hideous embarrassment to the Richmond community! It is some small consolation to read in the Times-Dispatch that the alleged offender, 19-year-old William C. Lewis, was apprehended on the spot with the assistance of the crowd. Lewis should be darned grateful that he wasn’t lynched.
The 71-year-old Hibbert handled the incident well. Said Stephen Lecky, the festival manager who drove him to Virginia Commonwealth University hospital, “He was lucid. He was laughing. He was tired obviously. He had had a very long day. … He was one of the nicest men I ever met.” What a class act.
— JAB
