Tuesday's death of Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd is a monumental loss not only for Jamaica, but for the entire world of popular music.

Sir Coxsone, as he was universally-known, had that most elemental of Jamaican quality: imagination. Except that in the idiom of popular music he got a heavier dose than most.
And he put it to good use.

Indeed, Sir Coxsone played a seminal and pioneering role, as the Opposition leader, Mr Seaga, has stressed, in the development of Jamaica's popular music and its important purveyor, the sound system.

For more than half a century he was there; through all the meanderings and fusions - from rocksteady, through ska and reggae.

But he was not only there. His influence was perhaps greater than anyone in the evolution of these sounds and rhythms, which today transcend Jamaica.
They are universal.

That Sir Coxsone assumed such an over-arching, larger-than-life, and more recently elder statesman, position in Jamaican popular music because of his ability to marry imagination with that other Jamaican characteristic, the competitive spirit. He was not about mediocrity.

So his Sir Coxsone Downbeat, the sound system he launched in the early 1950s, had to be the best, which meant not just better than the competition, but of the highest quality. He imported records in order to outplay rival sound systems.
Sir Coxsone's most profound impact was to come with his opening in 1963 of his recording studio, called Studio One, on Brentford Road in Kingston.

Not only was the name Studio One to become almost synonymous with Jamaican popular music, but it was the starting point for many of Jamaica's top musical acts. Sir Coxsone was the ace producer.

The music he produced had urgency, but often a sense of fun and, very important, command. For all its fusion, it was distinctly Jamaican, yet transcended geography. It could be embraced by the world.

Sir Coxsone's creative imagination that helped, in the process, create a music that could not be defined by, or contained within, a romantic niche. The music carried profound statements: about Jamaica beyond an idyllic place of banana tallymen and chirping yellow birds.

Implicit in the new music was the declaration that was to come late: we are more than a beach; we are a country.

That such statements were being articulated did not mean that people were only angry. To the contrary. Sir Coxsone and his fellow pioneers were making a far more important statement about humanity and the capacity for balance by the people who inspired their music. They were whole men and whole women.

Which is how we want to remember Clement 'Sir Coxsone' Dodd. As whole. With flaws. Perhaps many. But with humanity. And with fun. With love. And with respect.

We are happy that he would have known of the respect Jamaica had for him and that he was an active participant in last week's ceremony to rename Brentford Road, Studio One Boulevard.

Let's start up the band.

Trousers in Denim

Cream of the 'Crop'

Cheeky's World