Mike Henry wants Toots statue in May Pen
Published:Thursday | November 12, 2020 | 12:15 AMCecelia Campbell-Livingston/Gleaner Writer
Clarendon Central Member of Parliament Mike Henry has disclosed that he will be pushing to have a statue of reggae icon Frederick ‘Toots’ Hibbert erected in the parish capital.
Speaking to The Gleaner yesterday as Clarendon residents paid their respects to the man widely credited for giving reggae its name, Henry said it was a sad day for the parish and an honour to pay homage to Hibbert, who was born in May Pen in 1942.
Hibbert, the 77-year-old front man for the Toots & The Maytals band, died on September 11 after testing positive for COVID-19.
Yesterday, family, friends and fans of the late singer filed into St Gabriel’s Anglican Church in May Pen to give the singer a final salute.
“Basically, what I am here to do today is to continue to pay my respects to a true icon of the reggae industry and to say to him, ‘Toots, we can’t do enough for what you have done’,” Henry told The Gleaner as he made know his intentions to honour the musical legend’s memory.
“One of the things passing through my mind is restoring his house [in Treadlight], but that will have to be done with the help of the family and the cooperative efforts that will be made,” the member of parliament said. “But the town itself, we will be doing something that will be a tribute and we see a lot of statues being built, but I am looking forward to ensuring that Toots’ statue is properly structured for continuity of his life and purpose.”
Prior to the viewing of his body, there was a procession through the town of May Pen and to Hibbert’s community of Treadlight.
Speakers blared some of his biggest hits at every turn on the journey.
Hibbert was a three-time winner of the Jamaica Festival Song Competition and was among the 10 finalists in this year’s staging with his entry, Rise Up Jamaica.
The singers’s body is to be interred at the National Heroes Park in Kingston.
A previous arrangement to bury him at Dovecot in St Catherine after a thanksgiving service last month fell through because of a misplaced burial order and squabbles over where should be the singer’s final resting place.