Starting Stones, Buried Recordings, and Ringo Starr’s Drum Kit: Inside the Visual World of Reggae Master Lee “Scratch” Perry | Lee “Scratch” Perry

DKatz’s thirsty introduction to the world of Lee “Scratch” Perry was baffling. The Jamaican producer had been living in London for several years, and Katz, a Jewish reggae historian who fell in love with the music as a teenager in San Francisco, had moved to the UK capital in 1987 and wanted to interview the notoriously elusive artist.

Katz tracked him down to a recording studio in Rotherhithe, just over the river in south London. Perry welcomed him before insisting that he present him with “13 stones from your country” without further explanation. When Katz informed him that it would be difficult to return to the West Coast, Perry told him to “Go down to the Thames and bring me 13 stone!”.

When he returned, Perry counted the rocks and then turned to the television screen. “He takes the screen apart, puts the stones in, screws it together, and gets back to work,” Katz says. He then spent a few hours with Perry, which included trying to imitate an Alsatian dog.

The whole thing seems to have been a nuisance for Katz – who would later work with Perry on his autobiography – and ushered in the production pioneer’s strange, mysterious, and utterly unique approach to making music.

Although Perry’s methods were strange, they produced surprising results. Before moving to London, he helped Bob Marley and the Wailers shape their sound on Soul Rebel and Soul Revolution (before a violent row over royalties occurred). He produced Super Ape, arguably the most important dub record of all time, and through his Black Ark studio, created nearly a decade of unparalleled roots reggae.

His productions, which included samples of crying children, a bass low enough to crack a rib and an often overlooked penchant for beautiful melody, attracted artists from outside Jamaica who wanted his advice. The Beastie Boys sought him out, as did the Clash and Keith Richards, while John Lydon was said to have tracked him down at the Black Ark to rework some of the Sex Pistols’ back catalogue, although Lydon’s representatives told me the story was apocryphal.

Five years after his death, as fans try to expose the lies from tradition, a much-needed re-evaluation of reggae’s eccentricities is underway. Katz’s new book, Dub Revolution, explores the genre through practitioners like Perry, part of a wave of activism. This year has seen a series of new releases featuring classic productions, including Congo’s sensual spiritual Ark of the Covenant. Another book – Lee “Scratch” Perry’s Illustrated Door Stopper: Black Ark – unveils the secrets of Perry’s famous studio; Then there’s his “last” album, a collaboration with German electropop company Mouse on Mars, recorded two years before his death.

Perhaps one reason for this flurry of activity is a desire to understand Perry, an artist viewed by many in Europe as reggae’s court jester. Toward the end of his life he often wore fluorescent clothing, had his hair and beard dyed red, spoke in riddles, and declared himself “mad.” The lack of quality control during his last decade didn’t help.

There was also his tendency to turn interviews into farce. It is known that Krishnan Guru Murthy tried to interview him in 2009. I say He triesBecause he was probably talking to a cloud of smoke. Perry delivered his answers in rhyming couplets while sticking out his tongue intermittently, saying things like: “I’m killing the devil’s brain, so the devil can’t take over.” Jules Holland once asked Perry why he put a toaster on top of a brick wall in his Jamaican compound. “That means I’m toast,” he replied in a deadpan voice. (Presumably he was referring to “toasting,” or serving food, but he seemed to enjoy implying that he thought it was a small electrical device.)

Adrian Sherwood, his longtime collaborator and friend, says Perry enjoyed the good ending. The pair once sat next to each other at a screening of Volker Schaner’s 2015 documentary, which followed Perry’s exploits over the course of 15 years. Whenever he appears to puzzle an interviewer during the film, Perry turns to his friend. “He kept elbowing me and laughing,” says Sherwood, who believes Perry “always liked to mischief.”

Katz told me that if you wanted to understand Perry, you had to go back to Jamaica. Rainsford Hugh Berry was born in 1936 and grew up in Kendal in the north-west parish of Hanover. His father was a champion dancer and a manual labourer, while his mother was a professional obeaha West African form of spiritual healing and “witchcraft” that was banned by British colonialists in the 16th century and remains illegal today (Perry’s first song with Marley, Doobie Conqueror, takes a satirical stance on the practice).

Katz’s “stone initiation” on the Thames can be traced back to Perry’s belief in the obeah, which he believed provided guidance throughout his life. After working in a quarry as a young man, he claimed that the sound of stones crashing directed him to Kingston (“I go up to Kingston”) where he ended up working for Coxsone Dodd’s Studio One label as an A&R and handyman. He discovered the Maytals, worked with a young Delroy Wilson and had hits of his own, such as Chicken Scratch, which gave him his nickname.

But it was at his studio, Black Ark, where Perry’s legend grew. Completed in 1973 on the grounds of his home in Washington Gardens, Kingston, it boasted a primitive setup and was attached to an annex and a recording booth. The original mixing desk was purchased for £35 in London, the drum kit is said to have been owned by Ringo Starr, while the tracks were compiled on an inexpensive four-track Teac 3340. A Roland Space Echo delay produced Perry’s production in a cascading echo. What he lacked in sophisticated equipment he made up for in plays and celebrations: he would blow weed smoke in the office; Spilled whiskey and urine on some equipment; And recordings buried in the garden. Compared to other Jamaican studios, Perry was weak but his skill meant that nothing coming out of his production house was trivial.

Artist Edward George, who demystified the world of reggae with his radio series Strangeness of Dub, says Perry’s artistic brilliance is only one dimension of his greatness – and that of Black Ark. It was also part community center and part spiritual retreat. “The idea of ​​the ship was to be something where black people, especially Jamaicans, could be saved through music,” says George.

Rastafarians were always welcome aboard and the politics of black empowerment flowed through his production. “On the one hand, it was a production house, but it also had this kind of metaphysical cultural and political aspect to it,” says George.

The Black Ark’s open door policy made it a chaotic place and open to abuse by hangers-on and con artists posing as religious Rastas. First, Perry closed the place to outsiders in 1978. Then there was a botched remodel — which culminated in some faulty equipment being dumped in a septic tank. In 1982, after setting a fire to “disinfect” the place, he burned down the control room. Perry confirmed that he did it intentionally. Family members who were present said it was an accident. Either way, this episode brought a tragic end to one of the world’s most important recording studios.

Despite classic records made at Black Ark like Super Ape and Heart of the Kongos, some Scratchheads swear that his previous era as a hired gun moving between studios was his best. My favorite version of Perry is as the producer of Black Ark, or “The Black Emperor” as one recent group portrayed him, sprinkling his genius onto other people’s songs. Listen to Junior Delgado’s Sons of Slave, a thunderous roots anthem, or his ode to Rasta, Don’t Blame It on I by the Kongos, then keep listening to Leo Graham’s Doctor Demand, where a simple keyboard line and wah-wah guitar effect provide a sparse backdrop. They’re sonically contrasting, but they’re all imbued with Perry’s charm, his special aural sound.

Sherwood argues that Perry’s antics often masked his genius. “What bothered me in later years was that people looked at it as some kind of joke,” Sherwood says. People saw a clown, when they should have seen someone re-engineering music. From reimagining the studio as an instrument, pushing reggae to its sonic boundaries or inventing samples, few producers have come close to matching Perry’s influence.

“When you listen to those recordings, it’s amazing what he achieved,” Katz adds. “He had a very unconventional way of working and a very unusual approach to life. But the circus stuff? That’s the diversion: the genius is in the music.”

When Mouse on Mars played their album live at the Barbican Center’s Pit Theater earlier this month, there was one chair away from the band. On it was a miniature shrine to Perry, made up of a mug that said “We Love Bob Marley,” an empty bottle of Wray & Nephew rum, some apples and a candle. The group’s vocalist, Louis Chude-Sokei, visited the Black Ark site to take field recordings, which were played on bass, drums and electronics.

As Chud-Suki walked through the crowd, Jamaican birds could be heard chirping as he repeated the phrase: “This is a testimony.” It seemed like a perfect fit for Lee “Scratch” Perry: reggae innovator, mischief maker, and black emperor.

Black Ark: Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry is out now (Patrick Fry ed.); Dub Revolution is published by David Katz on July 2 (white rabbit); Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and Mouse on Mars’ album My Place, No Problem is out now on Domino Records.