Frederick "Toots" Hibbert, when asked about his work as a reggae pioneer, isn't afraid to take a measure of credit for the creation and popularization of the Jamaican-born music. Toots and the Maytals, organized in the early '60s when ska was all the rage, turned on the world with sophisticated vocals influenced by R&B and gospel, loping Caribbean beats and punchy horn parts.

"I am (credited as) the inventor for the reggae right now in the Guinness Book of World Records," he told the Web site About.Com last year. "So I think that's a very big input."

That line on his very long resume is the result of 1968's "Do the Reggay," a lilting tune that had the leader calling listeners to the dance floor, urged on by rising and falling guitars, sweet background vocals and short saxophone and trombone solos. The Maytals were reportedly the first group to use the word "reggae" in a song title.

"Yeah, because of that song I get famous," he told Westword. "But I didn't come up with the name for it. I was just writing songs and meditating and that word comes in my mouth. So I say, 'Let's do the reggay.' It's got to be a message from God. But reggae was born in Jamaica a long time before that and nobody know what to call it.

"It's just a different nature of music. Rock steady has a one-drop beat, and reggae has a one-drop beat also. Some of them have shufflin' with the organ and shufflin' with the guitar; the licks is quite different. But it's the same kind of music - just a different name and a different touch. That was just the natural evolution of music."

Hibbert's passion for music dates back to his childhood years, in rural May Pen, Clarendon, also the birthplace of reggae favorites Culture. The son of a Revival Zion preacher, he and seven siblings grew up singing in the choir of his Seventh Day Adventist church.

As a teenager, Hibbert moved to the Trenchtown ghetto of Kingston, checked out Rastafarian drumming, and developed a passion for the sound of ska, as practiced by the Skatalites and others. He also tuned into R&B, although not via night-time transmissions from radio stations in New Orleans and Miami, as some have reported.

"On the radio in Jamaica, I used to listen to Ray Charles and Otis Redding," he said. "I never heard any of that stuff from Miami. They play all kinds of music on Jamaican National Broadcasting, and that's where everybody hear it."

Hibbert met Nathaniel "Jerry" Mathias and Ralphus "Raleigh" Gordon, his original collaborators in the Maytals, soon after he left home. The three, listed on some pressings as the Vikings and other pressings as the Flames, recorded for a variety of important producers, including Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd and Lee Perry at the famed Studio One, Prince Buster and Byron Lee.

Toots and the Maytals, on a rapid rise thanks to such singles as "Dog War," "Daddy" and "Broadway Jungle," took a break at the end of 1966, when their leader was arrested for smoking and possessing ganja, and jailed for a year or so. Hibbert, who has always insisted that he was framed, turned bad fortune into a Leslie Kong-produced single, "54-46 That's My Number," wh ich became a major hit in Jamaica and England.

The Maytals rolled on, with such big singles as "Monkey Man," "Sweet and Dandy" and "Pressure Drop," from the classic 1971 reggae film "The Harder They Come." The group, then signed to Island Records, became international stars, turning out such favorites as "Funky Kingston," "Reggae Got Soul," "Living in the Ghetto" and a tangy, oddball remake of John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads."

The original Maytals split up in 1981, and Hibbert began working with producers/rhythm section Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare. That partnership resulted in 1988's revered "Toots in Memphis," a disc that had Jamaican and American instrumentalists backing the singer on interpretations of R&B classics, including Otis Reddings "I've Got Dreams to Remember" and "Hard to Handle," Al Green's "Love and Happiness" and Jackie Moore's "Precious, Precious."

Hibbert reorganized the Maytals in the early '90s, and since has released a variety of discs, including 1998's Grammy-nominated "Ska Father," on small labels. He continues to tour the world with the group, which recently has featured his son Zulu, but his rootsy sound has mostly fallen out of favor with younger audiences.

The reggae pioneer isn't enamored with the synthesized horns, heavily produced rhythms, rapping and profane lyrics of much contemporary Jamaican music.

"Dancehall today is not important," he told Westword. "It's not culture, it's not reggae. It try to put a lot of hip-hop in it, but real reggae don't have those things. Hip-hop don't belong to Jamaica. Real reggae is roots, and the rest of what is coming out is branches. Reggae music always be on top."