#344: Funky Kingston

Revisiting Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” (2020)

In 2020, in the depth of the pandemic, I took on a project of reviewing all 500 of Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time.” It was an excellent distraction from the state of the world at the time. I am making my way through the list again, from #500 to #1, this time sharing my reviews of each album.

Toots and the Maytals, 1973/1975

Frederick “Toots” Hibbert was a key figure in the burgeoning Jamaican reggae scene, and this album captures him and the Maytals at their beginning.

Rolling Stone lists this one as from 1973, but they also cite “Pressure Drop” as one of the tracks; however, this is incorrect. This album has two versions: the first was released in Jamaica and the UK in 1973, without “Pressure Drop,” and the second was in 1975, released in the US, retaining only 3 songs from the 1973 version and adding other selections from the Maytals’s 1974 album, In The Dark. Without the internet, it wouldn’t be a big deal - as with The Beatles and other international bands, American labels could do pretty much whatever they wanted with the American releases of albums for which they held the rights. If you lived in the US at the time, this would be the version of the album. However, if you lived elsewhere, you likely had a different version.

1973

The track listing is eight tracks of pure reggae:

Sit Right Down
Pomps & Pride
Louie Louie
I Can’t Believe
Redemption Song
Daddy’s Home
Funky Kingston
It Was Written Down

It sells well internationally and is a critical hit. The cover of “Louie Louie” is particularly fantastic, bringing a new take on a familiar classic. Similarly, the covers of Ike Turner’s “I Can’t Believe,” and “Daddy’s Home,” originally recorded by Shep and the Limelights in 1961, are transformed into reggae jams. Yet Toots’s originals are the standouts: “Funky Kingston” is an intense party jam and “Pomps and Pride” is a classic reggae sound (“Redemption Song” is not the more familiar song that Bob Marley would make famous a few years later).

As an album, it’s pretty great! I would have no problem with this version reaching #344 on the list. The question is, is this the true version of the album?

As with 1964’s Meet The Beatles (#174), the 1975 version of Funky Kingston is a US release selecting tracks and singles from previous recordings. It would have been easier if they had selected a different title for the album, but here we are. The US version keeps 3 tracks from the Jamaican release and six from In The Dark, plus “Pressure Drop,” a single originally included on the soundtrack to The Harder They Come (#174):

Time Tough
In the Dark
Funky Kingston
Love is Gonna Let Me Down
Louie Louie
Pomp and Pride
Got to Be There
Country Road
Pressure Drop
Sailin’ On

The 1975 version is essentially a compilation, collecting previously recorded material together on a new release. “Time Tough” is fantastic, as is “Country Road,” a cover of John Denver’s “Take Me Home Country Roads.” To me, the standouts are still the title track as well as the incomparable “Pressure Drop.”

I am more familiar with the cover of “Pressure Drop” by The Specials, which I listened to quite a bit alongside “Ghost Town” and “A Message to You, Rudy.” I was surprised to learn that their version wasn’t released during their heydey of 1979-80, but instead as part of a cover collection released in 1996 while “new ska” was just taking off.

I am being quite particular with the discography here, but surely leading up to the 2020 release of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” the editors of Rolling Stone had the interwebs and were aware of the different versions of this album. They might have specified why they chose the US release over the international original. By including “Time Tough” and “Pressure Drop,” the US version is quite a bit different, but I might lean toward the original release as the better album, simply because that’s the one Toots and the Maytals recorded and released. The 1975 release was constructed by an Island records employee, not the artist. In either case, Toots Hibbert is a key figure and the Maytals are a fantastic band. Their music deserves to be among the greatest of all time.