Episode Details

He built the most important recording studio in Jamaican music history. He recorded The Wailers, The Skatalites, Burning Spear, Dennis Brown, and hundreds of others at 13 Brentford Road — and he owned everything they made. Clement "Coxsone" Dodd is the single most influential figure in the architecture of ska, rocksteady, and roots reggae, and the most controversial. Artists who passed through Studio One received almost no royalties for music that sold internationally for decades. This episode covers the full story: the sound system wars of 1950s Kingston, the founding of Studio One, the Skatalites house band, the Wailers' arrival and departure, Lee Perry's bitter exit, and the catalog that still circulates today. History of the Caribbean — available on all podcast platforms.