Coxsone Dodd

Biography

The Kingston-born Dodd used to play records to the customers in his parents' shop. During a spell in the American South he became familiar with the rhythm and blues music popular there at the time. In 1954, back in Jamaica, he set up the Downbeat Sound System, being the owner of an amplifier, a turntable, and some US records, which he would import from New Orleans and Miami.

With the success of his sound system, and in a competitive environment, Dodd would make trips through the US looking for new tunes to attract the Jamaican public. While he did, his mother Doris Darlington would run the sound system and play the tunes. Dodd opened five different sound systems, each playing every night. To run his sound systems, Dodd appointed people such as Lee "Scratch" Perry, who was Dodd's right-hand man during his early career, U-Roy and Prince Buster.

Recording career

When the R&B craze ended in the United States, Dodd and his rivals were forced to begin recording their own Jamaican music in order to meet the local demand for new music. Initially these recordings were exclusively for a particular sound system but the records quickly developed into an industry in their own right.

In 1959 he founded a record company called World Disc. 1962 he produced the Jazz record "I cover the waterfront" on the Port-O-Jam label, two of the musicians who played on the album, Roland Alphonso and Don Drummond became founding members of the Skatalites one year later. In 1963 he opened Studio One on Brentford Road, Kingston. It was the first black-owned recording studio in Jamaica (see 1963 in music). He held regular Sunday evening auditions in search of new talent, and it was here that Dodd auditioned Bob Marley, singing as a part of The Wailers.

In the early 1960s, Dodd was producing ska hits by Toots and the Maytals, the Gaylads, and the Skatalites.

During the late 1960s and 1970s, the "Studio One sound" was synonymous with the sound of ska, rocksteady and reggae, and Dodd attracted some of the best of Jamaican talent to his stable during this time, including Burning Spear, Ras Michael, Delroy Wilson, Horace Andy, and Sugar Minott.

Honours

In 2002 he was awarded a Gold Musgrave Medal by the Institute of Jamaica.

Last years/death

He continued to be active in the music industry into his seventies, and on 1 May 2004 Kingston's Brentford Road was renamed Studio One Boulevard in a ceremony which paid tribute to his accomplishments as a producer. He died suddenly of a heart attack four days later, aged 72, while working at Studio One. He was survived by his wife, Norma, who passed in 2010.

Dodd was posthumously awarded the Order of Distinction, in the rank of Commander on 15 October 2007, for service to the Jamaica music industry.