Roger Mendez is new lead singer for The Maytals Band. He succeeds the legendary Toots Hibbert who died last September at age 77. Jackie Jackson, the band\u2019s longstanding bass player and musical director, said Mendez will make his debut with them on their new album which is scheduled for release late this year.<\/p>\n
Mendez is a veteran of Jamaica\u2019s north coast hotel scene. For years, he was leader of the Hot Peppers Band. \u201cNo one can replace Toots, that not possible and that\u2019s not what we\u2019re trying to do. But life goes on and so does this band, and Roger brings a certain energy to the thing,\u201d said Jackson.<\/p>\n
This year has been bitter-sweet for Jackson and his bandmates. In March, Toots and The Maytals won the Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album with \u201cGot to be Tough\u201d, released one month before Toots\u2019 death by Trojan\/BMG Records. It was the band\u2019s second Grammy, having won the reggae category in 2005 with \u201cTrue Love\u201d. \u201cThis means more than the first one because Toots is not here to help us celebrate. At the same time, it\u2019s a happy occasion,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Jackson, guitarist Rad Bryan and drummer Paul Douglas joined Toots\u2019 band in 1976. Guitarist Carl Harvey and keyboardist Charles Farquarson, who joined in 1986 and 1996 respectively, complete the current lineup.<\/p>\n
Toots, one of reggae\u2019s legends, died from complications of the Coronavirus at the University Hospital of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica. He is best known for songs such as \u201cBam Bam\u201d, \u201c54-46\u201d, \u201cDo The Reggay\u201d and \u201cPressure Drop\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Roger Mendez is new lead singer for The Maytals Band. He succeeds the legendary Toots Hibbert who died last September at age 77. Jackie Jackson, the band\u2019s longstanding bass player and musical director, said Mendez will make his debut with them on their new album which is scheduled for release late this year. Mendez is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[239],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1254"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1301,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1254\/revisions\/1301"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}