Toots & The Maytals: Pressure Drop (translucent bright green vinyl, limited edition) [LMLR]

Why you'll love it

A limited pressing of 600 copies worldwide on translucent bright green vinyl. It gathers fourteen songs from the Maytals' run with producer Leslie Kong's Beverley's label, including "Pressure Drop," "Monkey Man," "Do the Reggay" and "Sweet and Dandy."

This edition

• Limited to 600 copies worldwide
• Translucent bright green vinyl
• Fourteen tracks, seven per side
• Culture Factory pressing (cat# 783970)

About the album

Between 1968 and 1971, Toots Hibbert, Raleigh Gordon and Jerry Matthias made a string of records for Leslie Kong's Beverley's label in Kingston that helped turn rocksteady into reggae. "Do the Reggay" gave the music its name, and Toots sang everything like a gospel preacher who had wandered into a dance hall and decided to stay. Kong's productions were lean and bright, built on bouncing basslines and choppy guitar, with the three voices calling and answering over the top. This compilation brings the best of that era together on one record.

"Pressure Drop" is the one that travelled furthest, carried around the world by The Harder They Come soundtrack and covered by The Clash, among many others. "Sweet and Dandy" won Jamaica's Festival Song Competition in 1969, "Monkey Man" reached the UK chart, and "Johnny Coolman" and "Struggle" carry the same spirit right to the end. It is joyful, rough-edged and full of soul, and there are only 600 of these green copies in the world. We would not leave it too long.

Tracklist

Listen

On Culture Factory (cat# 783970), a compilation of the Beverley's recordings.