Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, visionary master of reggae, dies aged 85
Producer and performer who worked with #BobMarley and pioneered both #dub and roots #reggae styles dies in hospital in #Jamaica
Perry was born Rainford Hugh Perry in the Hanover parish of north-west Jamaica in 1936, and left school when he was young: “There was nothing to do except field work, so I started playing dominoes and learned to read the minds of others,” he said. He was hired by Clement #Coxsone Dodd, head of reggae studio and label #StudioOne, as an assistant, then as a talent scout, DJ, store manager and eventually a recording artist. He earned his “Scratch” nickname from an early recording, The Chicken Scratch, in 1965.
In the first of the many spats that dotted his career, Perry split with Dodd and began working with the producer and label head Joe Gibbs, who in turn was cast aside by #Perry. He became increasingly independent, forming his own backing band the Upsetters, with a string of early releases fixated on spaghetti westerns: Return of Django, Clint Eastwood, The Good, the Bad and the Upsetters, and more.
In 1973, he built his own studio, the renowned Black Ark. He experimented with drum machines and the potential of studio equipment. As well as firing guns, breaking glass and sampling animal noises, he also blew marijuana smoke on to master tapes to supposedly enhance the recordings. He pioneered the technique of dub versions of reggae tracks, with the bass emphasised, vocals sometimes removed, and reverb added to create an eerie, echoing sonic space. “I see the studio must be like a living thing, a life itself,” he said. “The machine must be live and intelligent. Then I put my mind into the machine and the machine perform reality.”
