Toots & the Maytals - Paul's Mall, Boston, MA, 10-22-1975 | Albums That Should Exist

Toots & the Maytals - Paul's Mall, Boston, MA, 10-22-1975

Paul he say: In my opinion, reggae music peaked in the 1970s, especially the first half of that decade. It's very uncommon to find bootlegs from reggae musical acts that far back, but I've found one here from one of my favorites, Toots and the Maytals.

If I had to pick an ideal time for a live album from this band, it would be right around 1975. If you look at the crowd-sourced ratings of their albums at the rateyourmusic.com website, their two highest rated albums are "Funky Kingston" in 1973 and "In the Dark" in 1974. So they were firing on all cylinders at this time.

One interesting thing about this band is that while they were a Jamaican reggae band, they were more influenced by soul music than most. Lead singer Toots Hibbert in particular idolized Otis Redding, creating a kind of reggae-soul hybrid. One can see that here with a cover of Redding's "I've Got Dreams to Remember."

This concert is pretty short, at 47 minutes. But virtually every song is a classic. The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. This must have been a soundboard or radio broadcast. The only snag is that there's virtually no audience noise. 

01 Monkey Man 
02 Time Tough
03 In the Dark 
04 Funky Kingston 
05 Pressure Drop 
06 I've Got Dreams to Remember 
07 Do You Reggae 
08 Take Me Home, Country Roads 
09 54-46 Was My Number