Four days after being honored, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd, the greatest producer of Jamaican music, dies!

FOUR days after the city of Kingston honored him by naming a street after his famous Studio One, Jamaican music pioneer Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd died suddenly yesterday, May 4, 2004. Dodd suffered a severe heart attack in his own office at 13, Studio One Boulevard, the street that received the tribute. He was 72. Sources who were at the studio when he died, shortly after 4:00 p.m., said the record producer and label owner was sitting around his desk talking and joking when Dodd went to the bathroom. The next time they saw him, "Coxsone" was sitting in a chair outside the bathroom holding his chest and gasping for air. "I held him in my arms and tried to revive him, and Jennifer Lara kept mouth-to-mouth resuscitation" - said Bunny Brown, singer of the Chosen Few, and one of Dodd's protégés - "It seemed like he was going to survive, then his eyes started rolling back". Dodd was rushed to Medical Associates Hospital in St. Andrew, where his death was announced. Dodd's close partner at the studio, Kingsley Goodison, said it was obvious he was dead before he left the studio. Dodd's employees, artists and others still gathered at the studio, waiting for a miracle, until the sad news came. After the doctors made the official announcement, Dodd's body was immediately taken to Madden's Funeral Parlour, North Street, in the same car that had taken him to the hospital. Outside the morgue, hundreds of people gathered as news of Dodd's death spread. At Studio One the mood was somber among his partners and artists. His wife, Norma, could not understand Dodd's sudden death. "He had no history of heart problems" - she said last night, choking back tears behind the Studio One complex - "He never had a heart attack before." In a statement last night, Opposition Leader Edward Seaga, a contemporary of Dodd in the music business in the 1950s, described him as "one of the fathers of Jamaican music". He said Dodd was "an extraordinary talent". Clement Seymour Dodd was born in Kingston on January 26, 1932. He was a pioneer in Jamaica's Sound Systems and popular music. Rocksteady, Ska and Reggae - in all of these Dodd was magic. He began playing bebop and jazz for customers who visited his parents' liquor store on Laws Street, and later Beeston Street, in Kingston. Working on farms in the United States, he broadened his knowledge of rhythm & blues, and imported numerous original 45 rpm records, recordings that became the official stamp of his "Sir Coxsone Downbeat" sound system. He started the Sound System in the 1950s, relying on the originals he imported to shine on the scene against his competitors, especially the recently famous Arthur "Duke" Reid of Treasure Isle. He opened his studio on Brentford Road in 1963, and from then on the name Studio One became synonymous worldwide with the best of Jamaican popular rhythms - ska, rocksteady and reggae. Dodd is probably best known outside Jamaica for bringing, none other than, Bob Marley & the Wailers to national attention, and producing some of their most memorable hits, including the international peace anthem, "One Love". In recent days, he had been in constant legal battles with younger Jamaican record producers who relied on his rhythms from the sixties as the basis for their dancehall rhythms. Last Friday, Dodd was honored by the Mayor of Kingston, Desmond McKenzie, and other officials, including the Minister of Finance, Omar Davies, for his contribution to the development and success of Jamaican music. Maximum Respect. Original Source: Balford Henry - Jamaica Observer Translation and Adaptation: Carlos Henrique S. Alcântara

IN MEMORIAM

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