Coxsone Dodd Obit (Jamaican Music Pioneer)

Don't know if anyone heard about this...

Obit from Jamaican paper
http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20040505/lead/lead2.html

Obit from BBC (gives a little more background info.}
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3690225.stm

JohnTiki

Aloha from the enchanted Pi Yi Grotto in exotic Bel Air Maryland!

[ Edited by: Johntiki on 2004-05-11 16:28 ]

That's sad news. I was surprised that neither article mentioned the fact that his Studio One was instrumental in helping start many SKA Groups (including Bob Marley in the "Wailers") long before Reggae.

Thanks for posting this, and sorry to hear it. One summer during college (1989 or so) I was in New York, and I specifically rode out to Jamaica NY to visit Coxsone's Studio One store since I was a fan of the old rocksteady sound. I probably wasn't the typical looking customer but they treated me like family and started pulling records to play for me. In fact I think the people in the store were family of Coxsone. After playing a couple records and talking story, they said, "oh yeah, you wanna meet Coxsone?" Turned out he was there in person, just hanging out in the back. So they brought him out and he sat in a chair in the store area and started talking about different LPs and artists, and telling me to grab this or that and hand it to the guy behind the counter to play. I was probably there like an hour and a half. Stacks of raw vinyl sitting around next to stacks of labels and LP sleeves, waiting to be assembled and put out. Couldn't have had a nicer, more relaxed time with them. Only wish I brought more cash, since it was cash-only! But they even gave me some free stuff too since I was a dj back then.

Anyway, it was an honor to meet Coxsone and hear his stories. In some ways, he was originally another record geek too, who used to come over and get piles of records from the U.S. to bring back to Jamaica and play in the dancehalls. But in doing so he was a major music ambassador for the island, and a huge influence on one of the most prolific music cultures in the world. I'm really fascinated by people like him.

-Randy

This is very, very sad news. Coxsone Dodd's contribution to music (and not just bluebeat, ska, rocksteady, reggae, dancehall and dub) was massive. Without Dodd and the also sadly deceased Duke Reid and Leslie Kong, it's unlikely that we would be listening to anything like what's available to us today. We shouldn't forget that the soundsystems run by Carribean people living in New York in the 1970s played a major role in the birth of hip-hop. Not only that, but punk rock had some of its origins in reggae too, through its influence on people like Johnny Rotten and the Clash. Of course, the specific sounds of Jamaican music have also been appropriated by other musicians around the world, from the U.S. and Canada to England to South Africa to India.

Certainly, the rough-and-tumble world of Jamaican music in the early 1960s left many artists cheated out of a decent share of the royalties. But those were also times when studio owners had to pay the Kingston gangs protection money while creating an industry from scratch. Dodd, Reid and Kong were people with enormous vision, and even more importantly, an ear for quality.

I think this news has made me at least as sad as, if not sadder than, I was when Johnny Cash died.

There is a tribute show for him on tonights " A Beginner's Guide to Reggae" on Radio 2 9pm GMT you can listen to it here..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/reggae/biography.shtml

[ Edited by: atomictonytiki on 2004-05-12 05:10 ]

Nice to know other TCers appreciate the importance of Mr. Dodd. RIP. If one is unfamiliar with his work and is reading this, the Soul Jazz label out the UK has been releasing excellent comps with great liner notes of different reggae genres recorded at Studio One and overseen by Dodd.

http://www.souljazzrecords.co.uk/