Johnny Dodds: His Teachers and Clarinets

Much has been written about Johnny Dodds. Unfortunately the biography by Lambert (1961) that inspires much of it is not well-researched and is mostly a personal appreciation of some of his recordings. The discography by Dürr (2000), is not only a discography of all known 78 RPM records, but has an excellent bibliography and the last pages have important biographical information, reprints of letters and an interview with Johnny Dodds’ eldest son. Example: Johnny Dodds’ “sex education” of his two son’s was putting a revolver to his eldest son’s temple and saying “If you ever ruin the life of another man’s daughter – I don’t care how ugly she is, how short her hair or how skinny her legs – I’ll blow your brains out”. The Solo Style Of Johnny Dodds by the late Patricia A, Martin (2003) is an essential publication which is well-researched and has an excellent bibliography. She avoids making value judgements. There are, unfortunately, rather a lot of mistakes – wrong dates, wrong personnel and many other trivia. Johnny Dodds was born on 12 April 1892 in uptown New Orleans. His father was a warehouse employee. He had two elder sisters and one elder brother, his younger brother Warren ‘Baby’ Dodds was born on 12 December 1894; he became a skillful drummer. In a