Toots And The Maytals: True Love

It takes nothing away from Bob Marley's remarkable work to point out that Jamaican music neither begins nor ends with him. Yet while Marley has become synonymous with the sound of his homeland, his contemporaries have been lucky to receive a fraction of the attention he attracted. A high-profile guest-star-fest in the vein of Santana's Supernatural, Toots And The Maytals' True Love has the feel of a long-overdue valentine to an often-overlooked great.

The Maytals rose to prominence with ska and followed the music as it transformed into reggae. By some accounts, the group even invented the word; its classic "Do The Reggay" was the first song to commit the word to record. Working its way through most of Jamaica's prominent producers, The Maytals scored countless hits in its homeland, each stamped with Toots Hibbert's voice, an unmistakable mix of island languor and American soul. Once heard, songs like "Monkey Man" and "Pressure Drop" are impossible to forget.

Since the early '70s, Hibbert has been more a standard-bearer than a pioneer, and, having parted ways with his bandmates, he records now with a name-only Maytals. But in his prime years, he earned a couple of decades of coasting. More a victory lap than a breakthrough, True Love teams Hibbert with an all-star cast of famous friends. It's a testament to his far-reaching influence that everyone from The Roots to Eric Clapton shows up to pay tribute.

Though mostly a set of hits, the album opens with a new song that showcases one of its most unusual pairings: "Still Is Still Moving To Me," a duet with Willie Nelson, reveals that Nelson and the Rastafarian Hibbert share more than the obvious, um, enthusiasms. Other highlights include a spirited run through "Monkey Man" with No Doubt and a soulful pairing with Bonnie Raitt on "True Love Is Hard To Find." Hibbert's celebration of leaving prison behind, "54-46 Was My Number," doesn't quite cut it in the new Jeff Beck-assisted version, but on the whole, the successes outnumber the failures. In the end, True Love's most lasting success will come if it steers uninitiated listeners back to the source. —Keith Phipps