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toots hibbert, 1942-2020

let me tell you a little story. in the early eighties i was in college and my musical horizons were exploding. in the summer between my junior and senior year i was getting heavy into reggae, and as usual, once i lock into something i go in deep. i was starting to build a little catalog of not only the biggest names – marley, tosh, jimmy cliff and the like – but also newer acts like black uhuru and steel pulse. and, of course, i had a great little album called ‘funky kingston’ by toots and the maytals.

so i felt well prepared when a few guys from my fraternity decided to head down to jamaica for our senior spring break excursion. we had our little boom box and i brought my tape case that probably had room for 12-15 of my best reggae tapes. after an arduous flight into montego bay, we had about a two hour taxi ride to our campsite in negril. we found a guy willing to take us there, and he helped us secure a case of barely cold red stripe beer. as we started making our way through the countryside, i asked him if i could play one of my tapes for the ride. he said yes, and so i started rattling off some of the names above, until i got to toots. all of he sudden he turned and said ‘toots, mon, play the toots, mon’. and so i did.

and so a few white kids from the midwest got our first taste of the jamaican back country as our driver careened through those roads, listening to ‘funky kingston’, occasionally seeing the western caribbean coastline as we headed to the small town of negril.

it was my first realization that there is reggae that we were exposed to in the states, and then there was the music that was popular on the island itself. and there is really no one who is more loved and respected on that island than toots hibbert. he had 31 number one singles there. there are some that say he first coined the term reggae, with his 1968 song ‘do the reggay’.

besides being one of the founders of the genre, he was also arguably it’s most soulful singer, often compared to otis redding. and by most accounts that i have seen, he was also a very kind and generous soul who always called jamaica home. he had a long and prosperous career, and i last saw him at jazzfest two years ago. he still had it going on at the age of 75.

‘reggae got soul’. yes it does, and toots was the best.

if you want a little something to get an idea of the influence he had here in the states, i would recommend a tribute album to him done in 2004 called ‘true love’, where the likes of clapton, bonnie raitt, keith richards, and so many others played with him on his biggest hits. it is really a fantastic compilation.

there was also a documentary on his life put out recently by the bbc that was really well done.

rest in peace, my friend.

bill and brint, this one’s for you.

kathleen edwards, ‘total freedom’

i started listening to kathleen edwards when she released her first album, ‘failer’ , in 2003. that launched a fairly successful career and she was a fixture on the americana scene from that point moving forward. i wasn’t exactly a diehard fan though, and so i was a little surprised a couple of months ago when i heard a new track of hers on sirius xm and thought to myself ‘i hadn’t heard that name in quite some time’. unbeknownst to me, she had been frustrated with the commercial success of her 2012 effort ‘voyaguer’ and, battling clinical depression and health issues, completely gave up on the music business and opened a small coffee shop in ontario (amusingly called ‘quitters’).

the shop was a success, she straightened out her life, and she got used to the quiet suburban life with her dogs. she found sustenance in the daily interactions with her customers, and didn’t look back.

then maren morris asked her to come to nashville for the weekend a couple of years back to help her cowrite a song, and she went, thinking it would be a nice break from the coffee shop. the process was intriguing to her, and all of a sudden she felt the urge to start writing her own songs again, and the flood gates opened.

she had been through a number of troubled relationships, both during her musical career and the hiatus, and much of the material is a reflection on that. as her producer said, this album is about ‘dogs and exes’. she gets much of her original band back together, and you can tell she put her heart and soul into it. the songwriting is right up there with some of her best, and the melodies are usually quite infectious. my first run through it was on my back porch on a beautiful saturday evening, and i got hooked on the very first track (‘redfern’).

welcome back, kathleen.

‘echo in the canyon’

this has been out for a while, but i just got around to checking it out in the last week or so. jakob dylan interviews many of the significant artists that drove the beginning of the folk rock sound, focusing on the ones who lived and recorded in the los angeles area – and more specifically – the area known as laurel canyon. a picturesque bohemian suburb uphill from the sunset strip, it became a destination for artists from around the world to convene and explore the synthesis of two musical genres that were considered somewhat incompatible just a few years before. the documentary combines conversations with artists that were there or directly influenced by the sound, video footage of the scene as it was in the late sixties, and concert and studio scenes of today’s generation of artists paying tribute to some of the classic songs from that era (i assume this is the reference to the ‘echo’ in the title). it is packed with information and i actually watched it a couple of times to make sure i didn’t miss anything.

i have two minor issues overall, the first being too much of the ‘echo’ component. my rough estimate is that maybe a quarter of the run time is devoted to newer artists tackling the material – some competently and others not so much. leaning towards the amateur musical historian that i am, i found this aspect of it less compelling.

maybe my second quibble is related to the first, but i also felt that the focus was somewhat more limited than i had hoped. it really only covers the period from late 1964 through 1967 – and it does a great job at that – but the area continued to be a driving force in the musical world for at least another five years. we see jackson browne waxing nostalgic on the byrds, brian wilson and others, but we don’t here any of his contributions to the scene. joni mitchell isn’t mentioned at all, not to mention gram parsons, the flying burrito brothers, or james taylor. if you want a good read on that, try barney hoskyn’s ‘hotel california’.

but overall i enjoyed the movie and would recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about where that jangly twelve string sound came from.

this one is for you, kevin:

ian noe, ‘between the country’

this has been out a few months now, so i am a little late to the party, but i took a liking to him the first time i heard his material. hailing from eastern kentucky, it is not hard to see him eventually gaining national notoriety much like his fellow kentuckians sturgill simpson and tyler childers. in my opinion he may be the better songwriter of the three. his hero is john prine, and it is easy to hear that in his style and delivery. i also hear faint echos of ‘john wesley harding’ era dylan. his songs are full of small town characters, usually down on their luck. the material is raw, gritty, and real – tales covering murder, addiction, broken romances and appalachian desperation abound – but there are also glimmers of hope strewn throughout.

he has been opening up for artists such as son volt, blackberry smoke, and mr. prine himself, if that gives you any idea of the types of artists that are trying to give him his well deserved audience. dave cobb produced the album, and it is just about perfect.

this is another one of those artists i just ask you to hear him out and give him a chance.

allman betts band,’down to the river’

for fans of the allman brothers band, this is something worth checking out. featuring gregg allman’s son devon, dickie betts’ son duane, and berry oakley’s son berry jr., this is an impressive outing of mostly original songs that slot strongly in the southern rock framework – a swampy mix of blues, country and gospel. the only cover is a take on tom petty’s ‘southern accents’. although they have known each other since their teens and have crossed paths musically many times, the potential of their fused legacies did not really reveal itself until 2017, when devon put together a concert at the fillmore in san francisco to memorialize his father after his death. it was essentially the debut of his new band, the devon allman project. duane betts made a guest appearance, and then his band served as the opening act on their tour. duane would join devon’s band for a few songs, and then do some allman brothers covers for their encores. it became clear to them that it was time to take it to the next level, and so they started thinking about making an album together.

recorded in 2018 at the legendary muscle shoals sound studio in muscle shoals, alabama and produced by grammy award winning producer matt ross-spang (jason isbell, margo price, john prine, elvis presley), it was cut live to analog tape on vintage recording gear – no computers or digital editing.

without a doubt my favorite cut is a nearly nine minute ‘autumn breeze’, a mostly instrumental and uniquely allmanesque offering that is reminiscent of a live ‘whipping post’ or ‘les bres in a minor’.

the band’s first performance was march 26th, 2019 – fifty years to the day that their fathers first performed in jacksonville florida. they are touring heavily this summer, and will be here at the house of blues august 27th. see you there.