No celebrations for Coxsone

BY BASIL WALTERS Observer staff reporter

Friday, January 27, 2012

LEGENDARY music producer Clement 'Sir Coxsone' Dodd would have celebrated his 80th birthday yesterday. But concerns are being expressed that eight years after his passing, nothing is being done to celebrate the birth of this musical giant.

His niece, music industry veteran Maxine Stowe, is among the peeved.

Stowe, a former executive at Sony International, is head of Jahnanda Entertainment Corporation, a consultant company that specialises in intellectual property.

She noted that Dodd is being ignored during a period of significance for Jamaican music.

"Seeing that his birthday falls around the time of Jazz and Blues (Festival), just ahead of Reggae Month and the birthdays of Dennis Brown and Bob Marley, it comes rather odd that his life and his work is not celebrated," she stated.

"Anybody celebrating 50 years of anything in Jamaica, if it don't involve Studio One

you have a big gap in your story because the music and independence go together," she added. "The birth of ska is the birth of Independence."

Stowe noted that her uncle was the first black man to own a recording studio in Jamaica. Just before Jamaica's independence in August 1962 he launched Studio One, setting the pace for his great rival, Arthur 'Duke' Reid, who opened his Treasure Isle studio shortly after.

A number of projects to preserve Dodd's legacy were announced during a press conference at Studio One on the first anniversary of his death in May 2005.

These included the establishment of a foundation in his honour; construction of a museum at Studio One;

the commissioning of a bust of Dodd; cash grants for a student to take up a three-year scholarship at the Edna Manley School of the Visual and Performing Arts; and helping to maintain the Alpha Boys' School Band.

Apart from the bust, none of the ther elements have yet materialised.

"All those things have to be revisited, the passing of Mrs Dodd throw back certain things," said Courtney Dodd, the younger of Dodd's sons. "All that will go back on the agenda with the family getting together to sort out certain things."

The younger Dodd is currently in charge of Studio One operations. The facility was closed for some time after the passing of the Studio One matriarch, Norma, just over one year ago.

"We are just trying to get the thing up and running again with some good artistes remodelling some of the original riddims," Dodd told Splash.

Bob Marley and Dennis Brown are just two of the many performers who were at Studio One early in their careers. Other notable artistes Dodd produced include the Skatalites, Alton Ellis, Toots and the Maytals, Bob Andy, Burning Spear, Marcia Griffiths, the Heptones, Freddie McGregor and Sugar Minott.

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No celebrations for Coxsone