Lee "Scratch" Perry

From Studio One to the Black Ark

Rainford Hugh Perry was born on March 20, 1936 in Kendal, Hanover Parish, and died on August 29, 2021 at Noel Holmes Hospital in Lucea, aged 85. The nickname Scratch came from "Chicken Scratch", a song he recorded at Studio One, per NME. In the late 1950s he sold records for Clement Coxsone Dodd's sound system and worked at Studio One, then left Dodd for Joe Gibbs's Amalgamated Records in the mid-1960s, and in 1967 aimed the single "Run for Cover" at Dodd. He broke with Gibbs in 1968 and founded Upsetter Records; "People Funny Boy" sold about 60,000 in Jamaica, and "Return of Django" (1969) reached the UK top five. Around 1970 he worked with Bob Marley and the Wailers at Randy's with the engineer Errol Thompson. The Upsetters' core in 1968 to 1972 was Gladstone Anderson on piano, Winston Wright on organ, Jackie Jackson on bass and Lloyd Adams on drums.

In 1973 he built the Black Ark behind his home in Washington Gardens, Kingston, with circuitry designed by King Tubby and a Soundcraft console, TEAC recorder, Echoplex and Roland Space Echo. Super Ape (released as Scratch the Super Ape in July 1976 and internationally on Island in August) is, in Lloyd Bradley's words, the culmination of Perry's work at the Black Ark. He also produced Junior Murvin's "Police and Thieves", which the Clash covered in 1977. The Black Ark fire is dated 1979 by Wikipedia, NME and The Fader and 1983 by family members and PopMatters; Perry said he set it himself over unclean spirits, while other accounts mention gangsters seeking profits or an electrical accident.

He lived afterwards in London and then Einsiedeln, Switzerland. Late-career work includes his 1998 vocal on the Beastie Boys' "Dr. Lee, PhD", Jamaican E.T., which won the Grammy for Best Reggae Album (2003 per Wikipedia, 2004 per NME), Repentance (2008, co-produced by Andrew W.K.), The Orbserver in the Star House with the Orb (2012) and Back on the Controls (2014, Grammy-nominated), made in a replica of the Black Ark. Keith Richards called him the Salvador Dali of music, and Afrika Bambaataa credited his sound as an inspiration for hip-hop. The documentaries The Upsetter (2011) and The Revelation of Lee Scratch Perry (2019) and David Katz's biography People Funny Boy cover his life.