Post by kaya on Nov 7, 2008 14:14:57 GMT -5
Famed Jamaican bandleader
Byron Aloysius St. Elmo Lee, the legendary Jamaican bandleader who brought Caribbean music to a world audience, died at home in Jamaica on Tuesday of cancer. He was 73.
Popular across generations and cultures, Lee and his Dragonaires began playing in the 1950s and were still performing -- last month at Caribbean Carnival in Lauderhill, for instance, even though Lee, an electric bassist, was undergoing chemotherapy. They were booked for Sunday's Jamaican Jerk Festival in Sunrise. His evergreen hit Tiney Winey remains a staple of soca party music.
''For 10 to 15 years, we've seen this generation gap,'' Lee told The Miami Herald in 2002, ``but [young people] are reverting to the sweet lyrics and sweet horns. What I'm doing now, for young people, is new music. They hear it, they like it. To us, it's old music. But it's the sweet music and it will survive.''
Lee, who composed the Jamaican national song and played for the British royal family, maintained homes in South Florida since the 1970s, said daughter Julianne Lee Samuels -- in the Doral area since 1988. Several of his six children attended Miami-Dade County schools and Florida colleges.
On Oct. 24, Lee received the National Honour of Order of Jamaica, in a ceremony at the hospital. Edward Seaga, a music-business executive who became Jamaica's culture minister them prime minister, was the first to record Lee's band in the '50s: a side called Dumplings.
'I then introduced him to the emergence of the first Jamaican indigenous music beat -- ska. His band used to play `uptown,' and that music was 'downtown.' I told him he should learn the beat and take it uptown. It caught on uptown and became the national music.''
Seaga called Lee ''a cultural engineer'' who played Trinidad's Carnival then brought the institution of Carnival -- and Trinidad's soca music -- back home.
Byron Lee was born in Manchester Parish, the fifth of six children. His Chinese father immigrated to teach English. His mother was of African descent.
As a small boy, ''he went to an all-girls boarding school,'' said daughter Julianne Lee. ``A nun took a special liking to him and gave him music lessons. He'd get treats when he did well.''
Returning to high school in Kingston, Lee became a star soccer player. He became a musician by chance. After a soccer match, he and four friends began harmonizing. Then they put on a show at school. In 1957, they formed Byron Lee & the Dragonaires.
In 1961, Lee and the Dragonaires were cast as a hotel band in the James Bond thriller Dr. No. Three years later, Seaga, as culture minister, sent them to the New York World's Fair, ``to introduce ska to the American public.''
In 1965, Lee and bandmates Ronnie Nasralla and Victor Sampson created Lee Enterprises, which produced shows starring some of the biggest names in pop music: The Drifters, Jerry Butler, Chuck Jackson, Billy Stewart, King Curtis, James Brown, Al Green and Sammy Davis Jr.
As the owner of Dynamic Sounds -- called West Indies Records Limited when he bought it from Seaga -- Lee recorded the Rolling Stones, Roberta Flack, Bob Marley and the Wailers, Paul Simon and Davie Bowie. The Stones recorded Goat's Head Soup at Dynamic in 1972. The band ''worked 52 weeks a year,'' said Lee's wife, Sheila, who married Byron in 1967.
In addition to his wife and daughter Julianne, Lee is survived by sons Byron Jr. and Edward John, and daughters Deanna, Judith and Danielle.
Arrangements are pending.
Source: Miami Hearld
Byron Aloysius St. Elmo Lee, the legendary Jamaican bandleader who brought Caribbean music to a world audience, died at home in Jamaica on Tuesday of cancer. He was 73.
Popular across generations and cultures, Lee and his Dragonaires began playing in the 1950s and were still performing -- last month at Caribbean Carnival in Lauderhill, for instance, even though Lee, an electric bassist, was undergoing chemotherapy. They were booked for Sunday's Jamaican Jerk Festival in Sunrise. His evergreen hit Tiney Winey remains a staple of soca party music.
''For 10 to 15 years, we've seen this generation gap,'' Lee told The Miami Herald in 2002, ``but [young people] are reverting to the sweet lyrics and sweet horns. What I'm doing now, for young people, is new music. They hear it, they like it. To us, it's old music. But it's the sweet music and it will survive.''
Lee, who composed the Jamaican national song and played for the British royal family, maintained homes in South Florida since the 1970s, said daughter Julianne Lee Samuels -- in the Doral area since 1988. Several of his six children attended Miami-Dade County schools and Florida colleges.
On Oct. 24, Lee received the National Honour of Order of Jamaica, in a ceremony at the hospital. Edward Seaga, a music-business executive who became Jamaica's culture minister them prime minister, was the first to record Lee's band in the '50s: a side called Dumplings.
'I then introduced him to the emergence of the first Jamaican indigenous music beat -- ska. His band used to play `uptown,' and that music was 'downtown.' I told him he should learn the beat and take it uptown. It caught on uptown and became the national music.''
Seaga called Lee ''a cultural engineer'' who played Trinidad's Carnival then brought the institution of Carnival -- and Trinidad's soca music -- back home.
Byron Lee was born in Manchester Parish, the fifth of six children. His Chinese father immigrated to teach English. His mother was of African descent.
As a small boy, ''he went to an all-girls boarding school,'' said daughter Julianne Lee. ``A nun took a special liking to him and gave him music lessons. He'd get treats when he did well.''
Returning to high school in Kingston, Lee became a star soccer player. He became a musician by chance. After a soccer match, he and four friends began harmonizing. Then they put on a show at school. In 1957, they formed Byron Lee & the Dragonaires.
In 1961, Lee and the Dragonaires were cast as a hotel band in the James Bond thriller Dr. No. Three years later, Seaga, as culture minister, sent them to the New York World's Fair, ``to introduce ska to the American public.''
In 1965, Lee and bandmates Ronnie Nasralla and Victor Sampson created Lee Enterprises, which produced shows starring some of the biggest names in pop music: The Drifters, Jerry Butler, Chuck Jackson, Billy Stewart, King Curtis, James Brown, Al Green and Sammy Davis Jr.
As the owner of Dynamic Sounds -- called West Indies Records Limited when he bought it from Seaga -- Lee recorded the Rolling Stones, Roberta Flack, Bob Marley and the Wailers, Paul Simon and Davie Bowie. The Stones recorded Goat's Head Soup at Dynamic in 1972. The band ''worked 52 weeks a year,'' said Lee's wife, Sheila, who married Byron in 1967.
In addition to his wife and daughter Julianne, Lee is survived by sons Byron Jr. and Edward John, and daughters Deanna, Judith and Danielle.
Arrangements are pending.
Source: Miami Hearld