The Lord is good, the Lord is great, but I'm getting f***ed! | | | | Toots Hibbert in Chicago, April 2, 1982.
(Paul Natkin/Archive Photos/Getty Images) | | | | | |  | "The Lord is good, the Lord is great, but I'm getting f***ed!"
| | | | | | rantnrave:// There are more words in this sentence than there are in the three and a half minutes of one of the greatest reggae singles ever made, which just goes to show—this sentence is now officially true, the rest is padding—you don't need a lot of fancy words, or a lot of any words, to get to the heart of most universal truths, and you certainly don't need a lot of words to put the average bad hombre in his place, which is what this particular song is about. "Revenge, but in the form of karma," to quote the author, FREDERICK "TOOTS" HIBBERT, who wrote and recorded "PRESSURE DROP" with his band, the MAYTALS, early in a pioneering, celebrated career marked by all sorts of revenge-worthy bad luck, from producers who bought publishing rights for pennies (or less), to a fishy marijuana arrest that landed him in jail for a year just as his career was taking off, to a vodka bottle that hit him in the head at a 2013 concert and robbed him of years of live performing in what turned out to be the twilight of his life. "When I want to hurt people, I just tell, them, 'Pressure drop on you,'" Hibbert tells Rolling Stone's JASON FINE in a fantastic, sprawling profile (paywalled, and completely worth paying for) published just three weeks before Hibbert died Friday after being hospitalized in Jamaica for what were said to be Covid-like symptoms. No official cause of death has been released, but if that's what it was, add one more horribly bad actor to Hibbert's karma list and may pressure drop on that damn virus forever—or, in Hibbert's words, may a coconut drop on its head. "Pressure Drop," a song that's 90 percent groove and 90 percent the breathless self-assurance of Hibbert's soul-shout voice, popped up repeatedly in the formative years of my reggae education. Give it to me one time, give it to me two times, give it to me three times (wait, that's a different song): First, in the film THE HARDER THEY COME, whose main character, played by Toots and the Maytals fan JIMMY CLIFF, shares some loose biographical details with Hibbert. Then on the US version of the album FUNKY KINGSTON, the first reggae album I (and, I suspect, tens of thousands of others) owned. And then again in the hands of a handful of rock bands including the CLASH, whose covers all pale before the original and which served to remind me of, well, exactly that. Toots Hibbert, on the other hand, had the kind of lived-in vocal instrument ("a rough and graceful thing," as the Washington Post's CHRIS RICHARDS puts it in this remembrance) that could do wonders with the material of other artists, from JOHN DENVER to OTIS REDDING. And which gracefully weathered into a hell of an elder statesman's voice. His final album was released two weeks ago, when he apparently had already been hospitalized, and, damn, it sounds like this. RIP... He really really liked bass... And he had a valid claim on coining the word "reggae"... TIKTOK says no to MICROSOFT and yes to ORACLE in what appears to be an unusually complex deal, subject to intense oversight by two governments, that may or may not actually happen... But your must-read business story of the day is CHERIE HU's fact-checking deep-dive into the holdings and prospects of MERCK MERCURIADIS' HIPGNOSIS SONGS FUND, which doesn't say the emperor has no clothes but suggests he may be a tad underdressed... TAYLOR SWIFT's performance on the ACM AWARDS Wednesday night will be her first performance at a country awards show in seven years... RIP also WADE ALLISON, EDNA WRIGHT, HAL SINGER, SID MCCRAY and DANNY WEBSTER. | | | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator | | | |  | Water & Music | | If you've been following Hipgnosis Songs Fund over the past few years, you probably have a lot of questions. Below is my attempt to analyze Hipgnosis' strategy and pinpoint its potential cracks. | | | |  | Bloomberg | | The 1969 CCR hit is the latest addition to an incongruous and evolving playlist that Trump's campaign has developed for his rallies and speeches. | | | |  | The New York Times | | The first to use the word reggae on a record, he sang in a soulful tone and wrote songs with subtle social commentary, helping bring the sounds of Jamaica to the world. | | | |  | The Washington Post | | During "Funky Kingston" — that golden-hot sunbeam of a song that Toots and the Maytals first dropped in 1973 — the word "reggae" becomes a sort of hyper-noun: a person, a place and a thing. | | | |  | Music Tech Solutions | | Livestreaming was intended to be temporary. It was a bridge between a pre and post COVID reality. But it's not. The biggest of Big Tech companies intend that it is permanent and they mean to control it. | | | |  | Bachtrack | | A personal reflection on the world of streaming through lockdown... and how the attitude to free content needs to change. | | | |  | GQ | | The songwriter, who died in August, leaves a body of work steeped in the history of American music. | | | |  | Slate | | Six month later, it's still unresolved. | | | |  | Pollstar | | The issue of testing has been a major part of the larger conversation about COVID since the president declared a State of Emergency in March. | | | |  | Vulture | | "I've been trying to redeem the word 'groupie' for most of my life," says Pamela Des Barres, one of three women who inspired Cameron Crowe's story. | | | |  | Los Angeles Times | | With her daytime talk show, "The Voice" judge and "American Idol" winner hopes to make you feel better -- without hiding heartbreaks of her own. | | | |  | NPR | | Freeman Vines is an African American luthier who creates what have been called "contemporary art sculptures hidden as guitars" out of old wood, some of it from a tree used for a lynching. | | | |  | Music Industry Blog | | Prior to the dislocation caused by the pandemic, live music operated with a structure that gave artists a clear sense of where they were in their careers and where they could aim for next. Small clubs represented the starting point, before moving up a ladder of venue sizes to theatres, arenas and stadiums. Then along... | | | |  | Toronto Star | | Despite the financial upheaval that Toronto venues are experiencing during the pandemic, live music is quickly returning to the city. | | | | | GQ | | We called 66 McDonald's to learn how Scott's new collab with the fast food icon is going over. | | | |  | Variety | | Do even the most apolitical artists have a responsibility to find and take a stand when society is crumbling, or should the forms of pop that have always ridden along on surface pleasures still be allowed to be a demilitarized zone? | | | |  | The New Yorker | | There's still money to be made, but it's mostly not the creators who are getting rich. | | | | | The New York Times | | In a lawsuit filed in New Jersey, a former member of the well-known Shanghai Quartet said he had been dumped after a remark he made on social media was misinterpreted as an ethnic slur. | | | |  | Pitchfork | | The scene-defining artist and acclaimed novelist discusses her first new album in a decade, the apocalyptic "Mandinga Times." | | | |  | ESPN | | NFL teams took different approaches during the national anthem to support social justice, from staying in the locker room to raising a fist. | | | | |  | | YouTube | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | © Copyright 2020, The REDEF Group | | |
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