Thursday, May 06, 2004
Yahoo! News - Reggae Icon Coxsone Dodd Dies at 72
LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - Producer and label operator Clement "Coxsone" Dodd, one of the great architects of reggae music, died of a heart attack Tuesday at his studio in Kingston, Jamaica. He was 72.
A jazz fan, Dodd originally was a DJ who operated one of Kingston's first popular sound systems, Coxsone Downbeat. He began recording R&B-styled material by homegrown talent in 1959, and worked with virtually every significant Jamaican performer of the '60s and '70s.
Dodd's major early discovery was the Wailers. The trio of Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingston recorded such early "rude boy" ska hits as "Simmer Down" at the producer's Brentford Road studio.
This one is for you, Dad.