He had only just been decorated with the Order of Jamaica (news of 27/10/2008): the following week, Byron Lee died. He passed away yesterday, Tuesday 4 November 2008, a victim of the cancer he had been fighting for two years. Founder of the band the Dragonaires, Byron Lee enjoyed his hour of glory in the ska years of the early 1960s, a genre of which they were chosen to be the ambassadors on an American tour in 1964, ahead of the Skatalites. In 1969, he bought West Indies Records Ltd and renamed it Dynamic Sounds, which would become one of the best-equipped studios in Jamaica. From the late 1970s, he turned towards soca, and he is the originator of Jamaica Carnival, which will celebrate its 20th anniversary next year.