Coxsone Dodd’s Daughter’s Bar Hit By Burglars In Ocho Rios

Morna Dodd, the British daughter of iconic producer Clement ‘Sir Coxsone’ Dodd, says her bar, Dodd’s Lounge, was ransacked by thieves over the Easter Holiday weekend about a month ago.

“They took everything, all my top shelf liquor, the television sets and they broke into the gambling boxes and took the cash accumulated over the Easter weekend,” the Birmingham-based Dodd said.

The Ocho Rios police confirmed the robbery.

“We stocked the bar back, we had to, I had some money and we bought limited stock but we’re soldiering on despite the fight we have been getting. Everything will be ready for the big event this weekend,” she told DancehallMag.

Ms. Dodd is the middle of planning a special annual Remembrance Day tribute for her father, the late Sir Coxsone Dodd at her bar, Dodd’s Lounge, located at 12 Main Street in Ocho Rios, St. Ann. The event will be held on May 4.

Dodd, who had emigrated to the UK as a child with her mother, Una Hutchinson, decided to return to Jamaica to start Dodd’s Lounge after a UK High Court ruled that she could no longer operate a Birmingham bar, the Coxsone Lounge.

In the court action, her own father’s estate lawyers – at the behest of the estate’s administrators – complained that she had passed off her reggae-themed Birmingham bar – the Coxsone Lounge – as being connected to her dad’s estate. Ms. Dodd was also told she had no right last year to licence some of her father’s music to a Japanese company.

The case left Mrs Dodd facing £26,000 in lawyers’ bills, as well as the cost of stripping her father’s name from her bar.

“That whole case was unlawful and full of pure lies, how can they tell me I can’t do nothing with my dad’s name? I am going to the Privy Council with it, I am going to sue the lawyers in England, they put in court I wasn’t the man’s child. They said I am not a Dodd, that’s unlawful, I am going to fight it to the end. They have written to me about the legal costs, but I told them to take it out of my portion of the estate…is 20 years now since my father died, and I don’t get a cent,” she said.

Her dad died on May 4, 2004, leaving his multimillion-pound fortune, including shares in the company that licences his vast catalogue of music, to family members. However, after a series of high-profile squabbles in the Jamaican courts and the High Court in London, Mrs Dodd, 65, is still fighting to receive her share of her famous father’s riches.

Even though the famous producer left behind a will, there’s a series of “competing claims” being made by other potential heirs. This impasse has resulted in the administration of the estate being taken over by the Administrator General of Jamaica, leaving the estate in a deadlock.

Two years ago, the public spat embroiled Ms. Dodd in a fight over the Coxosne Lounge that reached the High Court. The High Court judge ruled that “whatever her entitlement under that will, such assets are currently the property of the estate. Any share of assets Mrs Dodd is entitled to have not yet vested in her and so she is not entitled to exploit the same.”

She has vowed to fight to the end.

“The whole colonial system here is corrupt, just like how they fight Vybz Kartel, they fight me, this needs to be highlighted so they deal with it. No one not celebrating my father’s life, I am the only one trying to honour my father’s memory, yet still they’re fighting me,” she said.

Since her father’s death, Morna’s older brother, Clement Dodd Jr. died of cancer, and her stepmother, who she has been battling, died as well. But she vows to fight on.

“I am a fighter like my father,” she said.

Sir Coxsone Dodd played a major role in the development of ska and reggae in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. He had the first black-owned recording studio in Jamaica, and even had a popular sound system, Downbeat. Coxsone held regular Sunday evening auditions in search of new talent, and it was during this period that Dodd auditioned Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer singing as a part of The Wailers.

As shown in the Bob Marley: One Love movie, the Wailers had their first recording session with Dodd. The union produced one LP, two number one hits, Simmer Down and It Hurts To Be Alone, and lesser known songs such as Straight and Narrow Way, and How Many Times.

At the Studio One location, Bob Marley even lived there for a time, bedding down in a back room provided to the young star by Mr Dodd. Bob Marley reportedly got married to Rita with the help of Sir Coxsone as well.

In the early 1960s, Dodd was producing ska hits by Toots and the Maytals, the Gaylads, and the Skatalites. By the late 1960s and 1970s, Studio One produced hits for Burning Spear, Ras Michael, Delroy Wilson, Horace Andy, Sound Dimension, and Sugar Minott.

Studio One would begin to produce major international artists on a regular basis and it was not long before it was referred to as the University of Reggae and, indeed, the foundation label of all reggae music.

Coxsone conceptualised the idea of a vertically integrated studio with a record label, record shops, and a popular dancehall sound system, a successful model which was later adopted by other producers.

In 1963, he set up Studio One, where ska legends The Skatalites were the house band, cutting dozens of tracks a week.

At night, up-and-coming singers – including a teenaged Bob Marley and fellow Wailers Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer – added vocals.

The label’s main success was during the 1960s, but it continued into the 1970s, giving breaks to future reggae stars, including Horace Andy and Burning Spear.

Mr Dodd died aged 72 in 2004, leaving a legacy of some 6,000 titles, which were licensed by his company, Jamaica Recording and Publishing Company Limited.