45 years on the scene and 31 number ones on the Jamaican hit parade (yep, more than Jimmy, Bob and Peter), and it almost feels like someone should tell Toots Hibbert to put his feet up. There’s no chance; at 65, he’s still jumping around the stage, dressed in a sleeveless white silk outfit, his songs as energized as always.

“I feel like I just started” Toots says, “but now I’m at the point where I know so many millions of people love me and want to come to my show.” When Toots really started out in the ’60s with the original Maytals, Nathaniel ‘Jerry’ Mathias and Henry ‘Raleigh’ Gordon, their spiritual ska quickly led them to record with the biggest studio names in Jamaica: “I’ve worked with all of them, Coxsone Dodd, Beverley’s, Prince Buster, Byron Lee and Chris Blackwell.” With a line-up like that and a back catalogue of songs like ‘Pressure Drop’, ‘54-46 Was My Number’, ‘Monkey Man’ and ‘Bam Bam’, it seems more than fitting that Toots was the man to coin the term reggae, in 1968. “I’m the inventor of the word, and it means so much to me I can’t even say”. It’s clear that reggae is something much more than music to him: “reggae is climbing high…if it’s negative, it’s not reggae.”

Aside from linguistically, Toots & The Maytals also played an undeniably large part in the creation of the genre, introducing Jamaica and the world to the evolution of rocksteady into a quicker tempo, a greater diversity of rhythm and an admirably crude experimentation. Just as reggae sped up Jamaican music, Toots is sure to quicken the tempo at the end of every track at his live show, jolting the audience into a stomping reggae rock-out. His soulful voice has lost nothing, his acapellas are surprisingly haunting, even within the comfort of ‘Country Road’.

His new album, Flip N Twist, is a relatively strange amalgam of different styles, with Toots showcasing some of his other talents: “I play bass, drums, guitar, harmonica…I’m also the producer.” It’s a shame they don’t give any of the new material a go on stage, but there’s barely enough time for them to play out their biggest hits. Toots engages the crowd well, though his energy is a stark contrast to his band, who look close to bored. The band has really become its frontman since reforming in the 90s, and where a call and response was originally an interaction between him and the Maytals, now this interaction stays between Toots and the audience.

His tour is still going strong, and Toots assures that there’s more to come: “I have a whole lot to release, different vibes, good tings.” With statements like that, it seems the title of Toots’ first album still stands firm as his Peter Pan motto: “I’ll Never Grow Old”.

Toots & The Maytals appeared as part of Blaze festival at The Barbican

photograph by Rachel Hippolyte