Circa 1936 –
Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry was a personality that was in a category all by himself. In the 60s he has enjoyed success as a producer and a recording artist, but is probably better known for his wildly eccentric persona and famously bizarre pronouncements to the press. “I am an alien from the other world, from outer space” y himself.
Uniquely talented and creative, he work with Coxsone, with Joe Gibbs and with Chris Blackwell. Leaving all of them in disagreements about money, music rights, finances and royalties. With Joe Gibbs he put out his first single, the somewhat threatening “I Am the Upsetter”—a reference to Coxsone. The “Upsetter” tag would become one of his aliases.
Perry Style was “a bluesy, vocal style” that became Perry’s trademark. His lyrics, moreover, addressed certain issues in Jamaican life, such as political violence and social injustice. They also contained occasional sexual innuendos and scathing diatribes against his competitors in the Jamaican music scene.
By this time Perry had moved to a nice section of Kingston called Washington Gardens, and at his house there built a recording studio. Finished in 1974, Perry named it “Black Ark,” and it quickly became a tour-deforce in the Jamaican music scene. Breaking away from straight reggae, Perry began to head away toward far more unusual creative avenues. Much of this came from his production techniques. “Perry shot pistols, broke glass, ran tapes backwards, and used samples of crying babies, falling rain, and animal sounds,” according to his biography. “Innovation and experimentation became Black Ark trademarks.
Perry’s eccentricities began to foreshadow everything. Hence, personal life took a turn for the worse in 1979, when his wife Paulette left him and took their children with her. In response, Perry set the Black Ark studio on fire, completely destroying it. It was a breakdown from which he never seemed to fully recover, and with it came the onset of his famous eccentric personality. He covered the site with graffiti and small crosses, and “journalists arrived at the Black Ark to find Perry worshipping bananas, eating money, and baptizing visitors with a garden hose,” his website biography noted.
Perry later moved to Amsterdam, and continued to work there. But he grew increasingly eccentric in his middle age. He once said, he put a microphone in a palm tree to capture what he said was the “living African heartbeat,” according to the New York Times. He was a ‘mad genius’ of music. Perry’s whole look and persona, and all the items that became a part of his ‘being’ will no soon be matched by anyone. He worked with some of the best people all over the world and his work will stand for some time.
Hits include:
- “Roast Fish Collie Weed and Corn Bread” Jamaican Upsetters, 1976.
- “Scratch on the Wire” Island, 1979.
- “The Upsetter Collection” Trojan, 1981.
- “Build the Ark” UK Trojan, 1990.
- “Jamaican E.T.” Sanctuary/Trojan 2002.