Customer Reviews

Toots in Memphis (Spkg)

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Sly and Robbie supply the rock steady rhythm and folks like Teenie Hodges, Eddie Hinton and the Memphis Horns add the local color to this wonderful collection. Toots Hibbert sings like a showstopper from the US chitlin circuit on wonderful reinventions of southern soul classics. His Hard To Handle leaves the Black Crowes gasping in its wake. Love and Happiness is stunning. Everything clicks. A truly inspired project!

Toots Hibbert (no, Amazon reviewer, his last name isn't Maytal) takes these old soul standards and reworks them into something fresh and exciting. Toots shows why he is one of the greatest soul singers, ever. "Love the Rain" (really "I can't stand the rain"--the Annie Peebles hit)alone is worth the price of this cd, but there's so much more--check it out.

I first heard Toots on the ground-breaking ragge movie "Harder they Come" in the early 1970's. As far as I was concerned his voice on "Pressure Drop" stood above Jimmy Cliff's and Bob Marley's on the soundtrack. I still feel, after seeing him again live two nights ago that his is truly one of the great voices on the planet.

I think this album was released to let us compare him to Otis Redding's Memphis sound. A wonderful collection. Side by side, Toots' range goes far beyond what Otis was capable of.

At 66 Toots still puts it all out there at his concerts and his voice is still incomparable. See him live. And buy this album and "Twenty Greatest Hits " album as well.