Final Farewell: Toots Hibbert’s Funeral Set For Today

DOVECOT Memorial Park in St Catherine will be the final resting place for legendary reggae artiste Frederick “Toots” Hibbert.

There will be a private funeral service for the musician at Perry’s Funeral Home in Spanish Town at 11:00 am. Due to restrictions brought on COVID-19, only a few family members will attend. It is not clear whether the event will be live-streamed.

“It will be a private funeral service on Thursday morning… and Daddy will be buried at Dovecot. I was not a part of the planning. It was done by my sister, Leba, and I have to respect the wishes of Mrs (Doreen) Hibbert, his wife,” Jenieve Bailey, the singer’s eldest daughter, said.

Toots Hibbert’s other children in separate extra-marital relationships will also take part in the funeral.

The gospel singer, however, revealed a musical celebration of Hibbert’s life is in the works for later this month.

“I’ve been working together with Minister Babsy Grange to ensure that my father gets the honour he deserves. As soon as the Heroes’ Day (October 19) celebration is done, we’re going to go full-fledged with the honouring of my father where the world can join in, especially the Jamaican public,” Bailey said.

Bailey said that Toots Hibbert loved his fans and that Minister Grange wanted to give his fans some amount of ‘closure’.

“I know that daddy would not have had a career nor legacy without people. He was a people’s person so I would not be in agreement for my father to be laid to rest without the world that he gave his music and life to not being a part of it,” Bailey said.

Toots, whose career spanned six decades, died on September 11 at The University Hospital of the West Indies. He had been in a medically induced coma for nearly one week and was also on a ventilator, fighting off COVID-19-related illnesses.

Two weeks prior, on August 28, Toots released his first album – Got to be Tough – in 10 years, on the Trojan Jamaica record label. The Grammy winner, who thrilled the world with songs such as Sweet and Dandy, 54-46, Pressure Drop, Never You Change, and Bam Bam, received tributes from several luminaries such as Mick Jagger, Jimmy Cliff, and Ziggy Marley in the wake of his death.

For the Jamaica 58 celebrations in August this year, Toots entered the Festival Song competition, the same contest that helped to launch his career in the 1960s. His entry was titled Rise Up Jamaicans.