{"id":947,"date":"2018-05-06T16:16:58","date_gmt":"2018-05-06T16:16:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/?p=947"},"modified":"2018-09-13T16:18:59","modified_gmt":"2018-09-13T16:18:59","slug":"rs-380-toots-and-the-maytals-funky-kingston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/?p=947","title":{"rendered":"RS #380: Toots and the Maytals, Funky Kingston"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>#380<\/p>\n<h3>Toots and the Maytals <em>Funky Kingston<\/em><\/h3>\n<div id=\"yiv8756997158yui_3_7_2_17_1358531694665_587\">\n<p><strong>Release Date:<\/strong> 1975<br \/>\n<strong>Previously Owned:<\/strong>\u00a0No<br \/>\n<strong>First Time Listen:<\/strong> Yes<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<figure style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/b\/bc\/Funky_Kingston_cover.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/b\/bc\/Funky_Kingston_cover.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Love a great &#8217;70s drawn album cover. By Source, <a href=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/b\/bc\/Funky_Kingston_cover.jpg\" title=\"Fair use of copyrighted material in the context of Smile\">Fair use<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/b\/bc\/Funky_Kingston_cover.jpg\">Link<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Impressions: <\/strong>From the first beat, this classic reggae sound fits like your favorite t-shirt. The sound is like Al Green on the 1 and 3, with the gruff vocals of Toots Hibbert (who to Americans serves as the Kevin Durant to Bob Marley&#8217;s LeBron James.)  R&#038;B, Soul, Rock, Ska, Funk, it&#8217;s all in there.  Just perfect. Now he sounds like James Brown on &#8220;Funky Kingston.&#8221; Mellotron? They can do lovely ballads and sweaty workouts all the same. Their island deconstruction of &#8220;Louie Louie&#8221; is probably the best cover of that oft-covered song I&#8217;ve heard. And this time, I can understand the lyrics! What is that bonkers solo? Guitar? Vocoder? Every track is a stone cold beat, fun swinging and nice mix of sweet and salty. I could munch on this music for a long time. Something interesting about the reggae\/country music connection. Maybe it&#8217;s because both represent the sounds of their respective underclass. Maybe it&#8217;s cause Bob Denver and Willie Nelson smoke so much weed?  Love that loose and warm yet melancholy outro.<br \/>\n<strong>Great Lyric:\u00a0<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Starred Songs:\u00a0<\/strong>&#8220;Pressure Drop,&#8221; &#8220;Funky Kingston&#8221;<br \/>\n<strong>Sneaky Track:<\/strong> &#8220;Time Tough&#8221;<br \/>\n<strong>Should this album be on the\u00a0list? <\/strong>Yes<br \/>\n<strong>Will You Listen To This Again: <\/strong>Yes<br \/>\n<strong>Verdict: <\/strong> The fabled classic all-time greatest album that never was, if you squint past five sprawling discs of material you can make out a masterpiece in the distance.<br \/>\n<strong>Rating:<\/strong>\u2605\u2605\u2605\u26051\/2<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>#380 Toots and the Maytals Funky Kingston Release Date: 1975 Previously Owned:\u00a0No First Time Listen: Yes Impressions: From the first beat, this classic reggae sound fits like your favorite t-shirt. The sound is like Al Green on the 1 and 3, with the gruff vocals of Toots Hibbert (who to Americans serves as the Kevin &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/?p=947\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">RS #380: Toots and the Maytals, Funky Kingston<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[57,30,10,9],"class_list":["post-947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rolling-stone-top-500-albums","tag-57","tag-4-5-stars","tag-first-time-listen","tag-unowned"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=947"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":951,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947\/revisions\/951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}