Consumer Guide Album

Toots and the Maytals: True Love [V2, 2004]
Opening with glorious versions of two titles not in my recall memory--Willie Nelson's 1993 "Still Is Still Moving to Me," where the composer takes the song away from his host midway through, and Toots's own 1976 "True Love Is Hard to Find," where Bonnie Raitt gives up the caring he needs--this 2004 duet album then becomes a somewhat more generic greatest-hits remake. But with Hibbert's slightly less muscular timbre as roughly soulful as ever, that's more than fine--hearing how vital the 61-year-old remains here just makes his Covid death at 78 feel more vivid, tragic, and unnecessary. Although occasionally there are transformations--Jamaican newblood Shaggy verifying "Bam Bam," funkmaster Bootsy Collins and hip-hop band the Roots adding funk rhythms not riddims to "Funky Kingston," even 44-year-old Fun Boy Three grad Terry Hall claiming "Never Grow Old"--these are remakes, right. But they constitute as fine an album as he ever made. Never grow old indeed. A