Tucked away on a busy street in Brooklyn's East New York neighborhood, Coxsone's Music City is the closest you can get to Studio One without hopping a plane to Kingston. Stacks of rare LPs adorn the walls, and the store is packed with shelves upon shelves of full-length vinyl, 7" records and CDs that could keep a record collector occupied for hours. Abundant studio equipment, old posters and Studio One Records' 50th Anniversary t-shirts on display drop hints at the shop's storied past-it was established and run by reggae pioneer Clement Seymour "Coxsone" Dodd, founder of Studio One Records. Dodd, whose beats and rhythm tracks have been ubiquitous in reggae music for decades, was actively recording and producing music in the store's backroom studio up until his death in 2004.

"Mr. Dodd was always in the studio, from six in the morning until the next morning, just basically going through stuff he did the night before to get prepared for the next day's work," remembers Carol Dodd, Coxsone's daughter who runs the store with two sisters and a feisty Jack Russell named Loco. "If he had a flight to catch at eight in the morning, he'd be here until seven o'clock."

The products of the elder Dodd's workaholic tendencies are all over the store, with extensive stacks of singles and vinyl that sport his name in the credits. Instrumental singles that he recorded with Sound Dimension, including 1967's "Real Rock" and 1970's "Poison Ivy" are some of the most-covered standards in reggae music, and Dodd's contributions to tracks like Roland Alphonso's "El Pussycat" and Willi Williams' "Armagideon Time" helped bring ska and dub to an international audience. Dodd also recorded and produced music from Burning Spear, Toots & the Maytals, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Delroy Wilson, the Gladiators, Freddie McGregor, the Skatalites and many others, several of whom found their breakthrough success with Studio One Records and all of whom are in stock at Coxsone's Music City.

Dodd also produced the first recordings of Bob Marley & the Wailers in 1963, when the band members were unknown teenagers in Kingston. Their horn-laden single "Simmer Down," produced by Dodd and featuring the Skatalites, became the Wailers' first number one hit in Jamaica. The Wailers went on to record over 100 tracks for Dodd in their formative years, including an upbeat "One Love" that was later reworked into the more famous version on Exodus. Dodd also recorded Marley's wife Rita, who can be heard singing on the Studio One Women compilation.

Born in 1932, Coxsone Dodd grew up in Kingston, Jamaica with a passion for American R&B. At the time, American import records dominated the local music scene, but shortly after Dodd founded Studio One Records in 1954, Jamaican records were outselling all imports. The prolific Dodd was soon operating up to five record labels at once so that radio DJs who were already overrun with Dodd's releases would not know who was producing all the popular singles. Later in his career, Dodd relocated to New York, but he never stopped producing, recording or scouting for new artists, both in NYC and during his frequent returns to Jamaica. To this day, Dodd's music is being sampled, covered and versioned by countless artists, and it has been prominently featured in American films including Coffee and Cigarettes and Knocked Up.

Dodd's influence and achievements are prevalent in a tremendous amount of music, one of the most respected music studios in the world (on the recently renamed Studio One Boulevard), and a historic studio and record shop on Fulton Street, New York. Pay a visit, and pay your respects.