“The Sensational Maytals” Recorded in 1965, shortly after their stint with Prince Buster, this record features a bigger, more polished sound than their earliest ska songs. The Ronnie Nasralla/Byron Lee produced LP is packed with ska hits from beginning to end. From rowdy ska hits like “It’s You” and “Fever” to deeply soulful ballads like “Daddy” and “It’s No Use” this album proves that the Maytals are indeed sensational. – Maytals.net

The band’s musical career was rudely interupted in late 1966 when founder and leader Toots Hibbert was arrested and imprisoned on drugs possession charges.

Following Hibbert’s release from jail towards the end of 1967, the band officially changed their name to Toots and the Maytals and began working with Chinese-Jamaican producer Leslie Kong, a collaboration which produced three classic albums and a string of hits throughout the late sixties and early seventies – “Do the Reggay”, a 1968 single widely credited with coining the word reggae, “Pressure Drop”, “54-46 was my number” and “Monkey Man”, the group’s first international hit in 1970 . The group was featured in one of reggae’s greatest breakthrough events – The Harder They Come, the 1972 film and soundtrack starring Jimmy Cliff, named as one of Vanity Fair’s Top 10 Best Soundtracks of all time.

Following Kong’s death in 1971, the group continued to record with Kong’s former sound engineer, Warwick Lyn; produced by Lyn and Chris Blackwell of Island Records, the group released three best-selling albums, and enjoyed international hits with Funky Kingston in 1973 and Reggae Got Soul in 1976.

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