Byron Lee

Byron Lee , born Byron Aloysius St. Elmo Lee (27 June 1935 – 4 November 2008), was a Jamaican musician, record producer, and entrepreneur, best known for his work as leader of Byron Lee and the Dragonaires.

Biography Lee was born in Christiana, Manchester Parish, Jamaica, to a mixed-race Chinese-Jamaican mother, Evelyn Chung, and a Chinese father, Oscar Lee, a language teacher originally from Kowloon, Hong Kong. The band turned professional in 1956 and went on to become one of Jamaica's leading ska bands, continuing since and taking in other genres such as calypso, soca, and Mas. The bass guitar gained popularity throughout the country and soon became the standard. The electric bass's louder, clearer, and more in-your-face sound soon changed the sound of Jamaican music entirely, especially after Skatalites bassist Lloyd Brevett took a liking to it.

He and his band, The Dragonaires, are featured in the first James Bond movie, Dr. No, set in and around Kingston, Jamaica in 1962. They are prominently seen, playing "Jamaica Jump Up" on the bandstand at Pussfeller's calypso bar.

Lee also worked as a producer, producing many of the ska singles by The Maytals, and his entrepreneurial skills led to him setting up the Byron Lee's Spectacular Show tour, which involved several Jamaican acts (including The Maytals) touring the Caribbean. He also became the head of distribution in Jamaica for Atlantic Records. Lee had performed with the Dragonaires at carnivals around the Caribbean since the mid-1970s, and chose the location for the carnival to attract revellers from all of Jamaica's classes, stating: "The biggest problem was that most Jamaicans said it wouldn't work, that it isn't a carnival country, but I persisted 'cause I believed in it. I wanted carnival to go to the public. You always had other carnivals that were held mostly indoor, where persons had to pay to get in. I went to the people and choose Half-Way Tree where uptown and downtown meet. That is where the route will remain". In the early days of ska, Lee was credited in taking it from the ghettos and giving it appeal among Jamaica's "uptown" middle and upper classes. He has also been credited with taking soca in the opposite direction, popularising a genre that had previously only been enjoyed in Jamaica among the upper classes, with the island's working class. A concert was held in his honour on 30 June 2007, to celebrate his 50 years in the music industry, with artists performing including fellow cancer survivors Myrna Hague and Pluto Shervington.

Death

In October 2008, after receiving treatment for several weeks in Florida, Lee returned to spend his final days in Jamaica. In a ceremony at the University Hospital of the West Indies on 26 October 2008, he was awarded the Order of Jamaica (OJ). Lee died from bladder cancer in Kingston on 4 November 2008, aged 73. In a statement on the day of Lee's death, the Prime Minister of Jamaica, Bruce Golding, said: "Jamaica, and indeed the world, has lost another great music pioneer with the passing this morning of Byron Lee, one of the greatest band leaders ever to grace the entertainment stages of the world".