Released: 1969
Raised a singer of gospel, Jamaican Nathaniel “Toots” Hibbert formed the Maytals in 1962 with Nathaniel “Jerry” Matthias and Ralphus “Raleigh” Gordon, almost immediately signing with legendary island producer Clement Dodd, ubiquitously known as Sir Coxon, but with whom they would acrimoniously part six years later.
Having defected to Prince Buster’s stable, the trio then moved again to work with former ice cream parlour owner Leslie Kong, before in 1968 Toots was jailed for eight months on charges of marijuana posession, at he always claimed the behest of a rival artist.
Just or not, his detention inspired what would become one of their most famous songs, 54-46 Is My Number later reworked into Was My Number, his soulful vocals reminiscent of the elegies to God the singer had made as a youth. As the studio’s house band Beverley’s All-Stars cooked up a jailhouse racket and the prisoner sounded off to their ska chop, incarceration sounded so good you’d have been forgiven when hoping for an extended sentence.
The Voice Of Unreason 