Toots Hibbert died last night

by chuckofthesea

A long time ago, at the River Rock Casino in Richmond, close to the Vancouver airport, I saw a man who looked just like Toots Hibbert playing the slot machine. The only problem was that this man was about 15 or 20 years too young to be Toots, the man who had named reggae music — but the resemblance was absolutely staggering, and I adored Toots & the Maytals, & so I kept circling the machine at a distance… until I realized that, on the casino’s security cameras, it would look like I was casing this man to rob him, & so I decided that I should approach him, even if I embarrassed us both, if it saved me trouble with River Rock security.

I waited for a break in the action, and then, completely lacking in confidence, said, “Excuse me — are you… Toots?”

Any ambiguity disappeared instantly, as a smile spread across his face, creasing it the same way it had creased as he hit the high notes in the studio scenes in The Harder They Come; in his unmistakable voice, Toots said, “Yeah, man” — and threw his arms around me in a hug so warm & familiar that the casino’s security personnel would instantly have been put at ease. I still cherish the memory.

I’ve spent untold hundreds of hours of my life listening to, singing with, Toots & the Maytals; this summer, they put out a new album, Got to Be Tough, & I’ve played it enough that my six year old daughter recently asked me, “Are we always going to listen to this song?” I saw them twice live, both times at Vancouver’s legendary Commodore Ballroom. Once was with my wife; once was with the staff of the student newspaper in my university days — we used to pump the Maytals into the newsroom on production nights, as we put together the weekly issue. Towards the end of that concert — I have distinct memories of this, almost 20 years ago, though it seems so crazy & unworkable & impractical — Toots invited members of the audience to join him onstage, and so several of us from the newspaper found ourselves up dancing next to the Maytals, under the lights.

I’d promised myself I would stay up near the front of the audience for the whole concert, dancing, until Toots sang his cover of John Denver’s ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ — for me, still & always, the definitive version of the song — but after the onstage adventure, I was exhausted, & headed to the back of the room. Just then, he started started singing it, & I smiled ruefully — I, who must have been 21?, had been unambiguously outlasted by a man several decades older. No wonder he looked so young in front of the slot machines.

Toots Hibbert died last night; Toots Hibbert will never die.