Lee 'Scratch' Perry, Jamaican producer, songwriter, performer and pioneer in development of reggae music, dies at age 85.
Perry made his name in the late 1960s and '70s for producing some of the most cutting-edge reggae artists, with his Upsetter label helping establish many of the genre's greats, like the Wailers. As a performer, he won the Grammy for best reggae album in 2003 for his recording"Jamaican E.T."
Even in a form that has some eccentrics, Perry particularly stood out."Being a madman is good thing!" Perry told Rolling Stone in a 2010 profile."It keeps people away. When they think you are crazy, they don't come around and take your energy, making you weak. I am the Upsetter!" he said, alluding back to his 1968 single of that name.
Perry's most productive creative alliance came in 1970, when he reconvened with a vocal trio he had worked with at Studio One: the Wailers. On their sessions he produced for Perry's Upsetter imprint, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer hardened their sound, and they became one of the first Jamaican groups to outspokenly champion Rastafarian beliefs.
Perry racked up significant U.K. hits in the early '70s with stunning productions for the gifted, troubled vocalist Junior Byles and singer Susan Cadogan . Perry told British critic and musician David Toop,"The studio must be like a living thing. The machine must be live and intelligent....When I making music I think of life, creating life, and I want it to live. I want it to feel good and taste good."
Important relationships dissolved. He broke sharply with Island after label chief Chris Blackwell refused to issue the Congos'"Heart of the Congos" and two of Perry's solo albums. In 1979, his common-law wife Pauline Morrison left him for a member of the vocal group the Meditations, which he had produced.
His second act proved nearly as prolific as his first. He recorded with such acolytes as British producers Mad Professor , Adrian Sherwood and Daniel Boyle, Americans Bill Laswell and Andrew W.K., the U.K. electronic duo the Orb, the Brooklyn collective Subatomic Sound System and even old Jamaican contemporaries Niney and Bulwackie. In 2003, he received his only Grammy out of five nominations, as the self-produced"Jamaican E.T." was named best reggae album.
In his first years in the industry - which got a boost after Jamaican independence from British rule was declared in 1962 - Perry worked among its pioneers: Duke Reid, Prince Buster, Clancy Eccles, Byron Lee, Bunny Lee. He spent half a decade with Coxsone Dodd, who employed him as a go-fer, sound system security man, record hawker, arranger and ultimately vocal talent.
"It was great, great fun," he recalled of the collaboration."They were nice Jewish boys and they were clean inside. Very lovely. They called me 'Dr. Lee, PhD' because they could feel that I loved them. They were very good boys, wonderful." He had similar words for the Clash, saying,"They were listening and wanted to learn and I could teach them what they wanted to learn. They were happy working; they were all good boys.
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