Essential Collection

Toots & The Maytals

Some folks say that Frederic "Toots" Hibbert may have been the first to coin the word reggae (one of his early-'60s hits was called "Do The Reggay"). Whether he deserves that credit is open to debate, but there's no question that he's one of the most electrifying performers in the history of Jamaican music, and one of the genre's greatest singers. If Bob Marley and the Wailers took '60s vocal groups like the Impressions and the Temptations as their original inspiration, Hibbert looked more to the Southern soul of Otis Redding or Sam and Dave, although his musical vision is also unusually wide-ranging-- he famously covered both "Louie, Louie" and John Denver's "Country Roads," effectively making them his own.