Funky Kingston/In The Dark [Original recording remastered, Best of]

Having debuted as a ska outfit in the early 60s, the Maytals eventually found success in mid-decade via a Jamaican song festival competition (at which their song "Bam Bam" took first place), and a string of successful singles recorded with legendary producer Leslie Kong. Following Kong's untimely death in 1971, the Maytals found themselves renamed Toots & The Maytals and recording with Kong's former arranger and sound engineer, Warwick Lyn. The resulting pair of albums, 1972's "Funky Kingston" and 1973's "In the Dark," are perhaps the best -- and certainly the most accessible -- albums recorded by one of reggae's artistic pillars.

"Funky Kingston" includes signature songs like "Pomp and Pride," "Redemption Song" and the title track, along with the band's hear-it-to-believe cover of Richard Berry's "Louie Louie" and a spellbinding take of Ike & Tina Turner's "I Can't Believe." Frederick "Toots" Hibbert sings with a soulfulness unmatched in reggae, equal parts Otis Redding and Ray Charles, and with bandmates who can provide both call-and-response gospel and sweet harmony singing. Instrumentally, the band pulses with deep, hypnotically grooved tracks, crackling with the kinetic energy of their early years.

"In the Dark" strips the band's sound of the overdubbed horn section, and digs deeply into their reggae roots. Hits include the title track, along with "Time Tough," and the prison-time inspired (and James Brown styled) "54-46 Was My Number." The Maytals second hear-it-to-believe-it cover, this time reworking John Denver's "Take Me Home Country Roads," is a marvel of reggae soul. It's nearly impossible to remember Denver's treacly original after spinning the Maytals' rendition.

This two-fer brings together both albums' original U.K. track listings and running orders for the first time on a U.S. release. In contrast, the 1976 U.S. issue of "Funky Kingston" distilled the ten tracks of "Funky Kingston" and twelve tracks of "In the Dark" (plus "Pressure Drop" from the soundtrack of "The Harder They Come") to a scant ten track total. With the inclusion of "Pressure Drop" as a bonus on this collection, listeners weaned on the U.S. original can restore its original track order by programming 12, 10, 7, 17, 3, 2, 9, 15, 21, 20. Not that you're likely to want to after listening to these albums in their original glory.

Bob Marley may have become the prophet's face of reggae, but these two classic albums demonstrate plain and simple: Toots & The Maytals were as large a part of the music's soul as anyone. Period.

As others have posted, this CD compiles two sublime LPs from Toots and the Maytals, and easily rates 5 stars. My vinyl copy of Funky Kingston became a symphony of crackles and pops because I had played it so often. Unfortunately, the current collection does a real disservice to the music. In place of the warm and clear analog production of the originals, the recordings on the current CD are muffled and extremely muddy. I'm not an audio snob, but really, I find the CD to be almost unlistenable, which is a tragedy given that this is such joyful funky music.

Toots & The Maytals make melodic reggae with beautiful vocal harmonies. Funky Kingston explores the rougher edge of the band in classic tracks like the gripping Pomp and Pride and the hypnotic Louie Louie. There's a joyous party atmosphere in the rousing choruses and the swaying beats. Daddy is a jazzy, bluesy song and doesn't sound like reggae at all, while the title track is a tour de force of funky reggae. Toots vocalises a lot throughout, whith "la la's" and "da da's" to take the groove beyond words. Rough and rootsy, this album ranks among this legendary band's finest moments.

In The Dark has a spiritual undertone and lots of soul. My favorites here include Got To Be There, the title track, Time Tough, the John Denver song Take Me Home Country Roads, 54-36 and Fever. A very accomplished set that demonstrates the band's versatility and their musical prowess that earned them an almost mythical status in Jamaica. Reggae comes in many forms - whereas there is a strong rock influence in the music of Marley and Tosh, for example, the music of the Maytals is a seamless blend of reggae and soul. Listen and enjoy.

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