764 Toots and the Maytals - Funky Kingston (1975)

Studio Album - Rocksteady/Reggae

About the Act:

Toots and the Maytals are a band from Jamaica, playing music in the sak/rocksteady/reggae spectrum. They are credited with inventing the word "Reggay". They started in 1962 and have mostly been active since, with a decent number of members and past members (including Toots Hibert). Wikipedia lists 24 studio albums from them

A brief (and over-simplified) history of Reggae, Rocksteady and Ska:

Ska came first, and emerged in the 50s in Jamaica. It is named after the off-beat emphasis, often played on a high-tone guitar, so the rhythm kind of goes un-ska, um-ska, um-ska. Songs tend to be fast.

Rocksteady (the least well-known name in the three genres) emerged in 1966, has a similar rhythm to Ska, but a slowing down of the pace. It is named after a dance style which matches the style and pace, and a track names Rocksteady by Anton Ellis. Quite a bit of Rocksteady is labelled as Reggae these days.

Reggae came along in the late 60, and became more widely known world-wide in the early 70s. It's name is taken from the Toots and the Maytals song "Do the Reggay". It is a slowing down again of the beat from Rocksteady, still with an emphasis on the off-beat, but now turning it into a double-beat, kind of like um, cha-cha, um, cha-cha (again "Reggae" is meant to be somewhat onomatopoeic). Reggae was adopted as a wider cultural term, and has strong associations with the Rastafarian religion. Bob Marley was possibly the best-known Reggae artist worldwide.

In the late 70s, into the early 80s, the British Punk scene adopted ska into the punk style, making two-tone, or ska-punk. This was often played by mixed-race bands. This mix of ska and punk spread to the US also.

As always, the edges of these genres are fuzzy and there is lots of variation within it.  

About the Album:

This album was maybe the 8th album by the band. However, there were actually two related albums released by the same band with the same name, one in 1973 in Jamaica and the UK, and one in the US in 1975. They share some tracks. This is the US release.

My History with this Album:

None

Review:

Well, this is the genuine deal, I guess, real Jamaican music from Jamaica. If authenticity is important to you then this is worth telling you. According to the configuration I have outlined above, much of this is probably actually Rocksteady, with the occasional slower reggae-like track, and some faster moving into the ska territory. There is a version of Louie Louie which is a standard, and a version of Country Road, replacing "West Virginia" with "West Jamaica" and some other changes to the words. The title track, Funky Kingston, actually is more of a funk track than a reggae track, but is somewhat a mixture of the two. 

I enjoyed it, once I found the right version (I also enjoyed the UK version I listened to first). It bounces along quite nicely. I found it historically interesting also, and those two things (interest and enjoyment) were about in equal measure. I didn't feel like I was strong "into" it, more that I watched it go past and appreciated it, much as one might drive past a nice building and think "that's a nice building" but not feeling so strongly that you feel compelled to stop and take a picture.

7/10

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/7a341nZsSfwyBsq1tMPETz

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLORSNiuopBANGAhrm4PDOMfXaiTqYBA4o

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funky_Kingston