- Music producer Clement ‘Sir Coxsone’ Dodd set up legendary Studio One label
- He died in 2004, leaving fortune including shares in music licensing company
- But daughter is still fighting to receive her share of her famous father’s riches
By RORY TINGLE—-HOME AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT FOR MAILONLINE
The British daughter of the reggae legend who discovered Bob Marley and The Wailers is locked in a multimillion-pound transatlantic legal fight over her inheritance 17 years after his death.
Clement ‘Sir Coxsone’ Dodd was a Jamaican music supremo who founded the legendary Studio One label, where Marley and other reggae and ska stars were discovered.
At its height in the 1960s, it was known as the ‘Motown of Jamaica’, churning out thousands of hit singles by the likes of The Wailers, Toots and the Maytals and Dennis Brown.
He died in 2004, leaving his multimillion-pound fortune, including shares in the company which licenses his vast catalogue of music, to members of family, including Birmingham-based daughter Morna Dodd.
However, after a series of spats in the Jamaican courts and the High Court in London, Mrs Dodd, 63, is still fighting to receive her share of her famous father’s riches.
Clement ‘Sir Coxsone’ Dodd was a Jamaican music supremo who founded the legendary Studio One label. His daughter, Morna Dodd,(right) is fighting for a share of his estate
According to lawyers, Mr Dodd’s estate has been deadlocked due to a series of “competing claims” being made by other potential heirs.
It has resulted in the administration of the estate being taken over by the Administrator General of Jamaica.
Last week, the latest round in Mrs Dodd’s fight reached the High Court – after Mrs Dodd was sued by the administrators of her own father’s estate.
The estate’s lawyers complained that she had passed off her reggae-themed Birmingham bar – the Coxsone Lounge – as being connected to her dad’s estate.
And she was also told she had no right last year to license 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.
Music supremo who churned out thousands of hits
Clement Dodd grew his music business from humble beginnings in Jamaica, having started out as one of the island’s “sound system” operators, running mass parties from the 1950s onwards.
He had previously released singles, but in 1963 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 Wailers had their first hit, ‘Simmer Down’, while at Studio One and Marley even lived there for a time, bedding down in a back room provided to the young star by Mr Dodd.
The label’s main success was during the 1960s, when it became known as a ‘Motown of Jamaica’, but it continued into the 1970s, giving breaks to future reggae stars including Horace Andy and Burning Spear.
And she could now be pursued by the Jamaican state for any profits she made after the ruling by High Court judge, Judge Francesca Kaye.
“Whatever her entitlement under that will, such assets are currently the property of the estate,” said the its barrister Dr Jamie Muir Wood.
“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.”
Representing herself in court, the chef and businesswoman insisted she didn’t mean to do anything wrong and claimed she needed money to pay lawyers in the long-running fight over her inheritance.
“I was financially embarrassed,” she told the judge.
“It’s been going on for 17 years – for 17 years I have pleaded with them.
“They say I can’t even attribute the lounge to my dad. There are 6,000 copyright titles, and I used 20.”
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.
His will split his cash, property and shares in the company between various members of his family, including Mrs Dodd, who had emigrated to the UK as a child with her mother, Una Hutchinson.
But after his death, battle lines were drawn up between his heirs as they disputed the fall-out from his will.
Mr Dodd helped discover Bob Marley and a raft of other high-profile musicians
And following a clash between Morna’s brother, Clement Junior, their stepmother Norma and stepsister Carol in 2010, the Jamaican Supreme Court ruled that the Administrator General of the island should administer his estate.
More than a decade later, the estate is still effectively deadlocked, with lawyers confirming that its administration had been held up due to “competing claims” to Dodd’s legacy.
Mrs Dodd even claimed last week that “heart-rending” questions had been raised as to whether she is Mr Dodd’s true daughter, but lawyers for the estate told Judge Kaye that it was never doubted.
“We have never suggested that she was not the daughter of Mr Dodd,” said the estate’s barrister, Dr Jamie Muir Wood.
The latest row spilled into court after Mrs. Dodd used her father’s nickname for her Birmingham bar and grill, which lawyers claimed passed off the bar as being connected to his estate.
She had also attempted to licence some of her father’s tracks to a Japanese company, which the publishing company said she had no right to do.
“Although you’re a shareholder in that company, you are not a director and are therefore not entitled to exploit those works on behalf of the company,” Dr. Muir Wood told her in court.
Mrs Dodd also argued that she should be made a director of Jamaica Recording, known as JamRec, rather than just act as a minority shareholder.
That would be in everyone’s best interests, she claimed, as she has the know-how to maximise the estate’s ability to exploit her late father’s works.
After a brief hearing, Judge Kaye said Mrs. Dodd would have to rename her bar and said the licensing agreements she signed last year were not valid.
“She is not legally permitted to act on behalf of the estate even if she is a beneficiary, she has no direct interest in the copyrights,” she said.
“The agreements she entered into last year were ones that she could not have entered into.”
The complex wrangle over Mr. Dodd’s estate continues in Jamaica.
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