Sir Coxsone
| Coxsone Dodd | |
|---|---|
Dodd at Studio One, Brooklyn
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Clement Seymour Dodd |
| Also known as | Sir Coxsone |
| Born | 26 January 1932 |
| Origin | Kingston, Jamaica |
| Died | 5 May 2004 (aged 72) |
| Genres |
Ska Rocksteady Gospel Reggae |
| Occupation(s) | Record producer |
| Labels | Studio One, Coxsone, Tabernacle |
Clement Seymour "Sir Coxsone" Dodd CD (26 January 1932 – 5 May 2004) was a Jamaican record producer who was influential in the development of ska and reggae in the 1950s, 1960s and beyond.
He was nicknamed "Coxsone" at school due to his talent as a cricketer (his friends compared him to Alec Coxon, a member of the 1940s Yorkshire County Cricket Club team).
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.
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.
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