LOCAL MUSICIANS IN RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, RALLY FOR TOOTS!

RICHMOND, VA—A River Rock concert last month where thousands turned out to see Grammy nominated reggae group Toots and the Maytals came to a halt about an hour into the show when a glass liquor bottle flew and hit lead singer, 70-year-old Frederick Hibbert, best known as ‘Toots’ in the head.Local reggae promoter, John Chandler, was in the crowd.”I saw the glass go flying I think everybody just dropped everything it was an obliterating shock when it happened, first you heard in the front, ‘uh uh uh’ you couldn’t hear what people were saying but I think it was ‘lock him up, lock him up’ and there were fingers pointing down at an individual in the crowd,” said Chandler.

Police arrested 19-year-old William Lewis of Henrico and charged him with malicious wounding.

The news hit local musicians like Susan Greenbaum pretty hard.

“I cannot imagine something like that happen, I don’t think it’s fair for an entertainer to be up there doing his job and have to worry about something like that,” Greenbaum.

Now in a major effort to set things straight, Greenbaum has created this get well soon banner for Toots and is rallying Richmonders to come and send toots a positive message.

“I just want to make sure Toots knows we’re a great city, of really great people and this incident in no way represents what the city’s all about,” said Greenbaum.

Much of the banner has been filled.

“We hope to have every bit of space filled with signatures so as soon as we have that accomplished, which will take about another week, we’ll send it down to Toot’s manager and send it off to Jamaica…and we’re just really hoping he’ll come back and especially hoping he will heal completely,” said Greenbaum.

Toots did traveled back to Richmond from Jamaica for the court hearing this week, but there are no plans for his band to come perform again.

The banner has been floating around the city. This week – it’ll be at the Mobile Munchies food cart on West Main Street near VCU from 11:30 AM to 3:30 PM.