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Lee 'Scratch' Perry

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Lee 'Scratch' Perry's real name was Rainford Hugh Perry. He was born in 1936 in Kendal, in rural Jamaica. After the age of fifteen he worked as a labourer, until he moved to Kingston. At the end of the 1950s he began as a record seller for Coxsone Dodd's sound system and did all sorts of jobs in his studio, Studio One. After quarrels over money he left for Joe Gibbs, and in 1968 he started his own label, Upsetter Records. His single People Funny Boy, a jibe at Gibbs, used the sound of a crying baby and had a fast, chopping rhythm that would soon be called reggae.

Music and breakthrough

With his studio band The Upsetters he scored a hit in England in 1969 with the instrumental The Return of Django. Around 1970 he worked with Bob Marley and The Wailers, and he encouraged the engineer to use reverb and echo. In 1973 he built a studio of his own in his back garden, the Black Ark. There he worked for days on his mixes, with only four tracks, which he kept bouncing down to make room for new layers. He recorded Junior Murvin, Max Romeo and The Congos there, among others. Super Ape (1976) is regarded as the high point of that period. Around 1978 the studio fell into decline and burned down; Perry himself said that he had set the fire.

Influence

Perry was, together with King Tubby, one of the pioneers of dub. He made new versions of existing songs with echo, reverb and loose sound fragments, and was already thinking of the later mixes while recording. Later he worked with The Clash, Adrian Sherwood and the Beastie Boys, among others. He died in 2021.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to Police and Thieves by Junior Murvin, recorded at the Black Ark. Notice Murvin's high falsetto voice and the warm, somewhat hazy sound around it, with the bass up front and echo on the instruments.

Discography

Studio albums

In School of Rock

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Mentioned in other articles

See also

Categories: ArtistsDub