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Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives: Jah-tember 4, 2021 – Lee “Scratch” Perry Black Ark Legacy!
Greetings,
KRCL is building a new studio and so all Summer we have been building shows from home. I ‘n’ I was putting together an entirely different Smile Jamaica. It was a beautiful Sunday morning and I caught an alert on my phone from Rolling Stone Magazine:
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/lee-scratch-perry-dead-obit-1045198/
Damn. First U Roy. Then Bunny Wailer. Now Lee. For me, Lee “Scratch” Perry epitomized what I loved about Reggae music. He was there at the beginning of ska. Brought the Wailers their riddim section and he was a giant in the Reggae mythos via his Black Ark studio.
A mad genius who marched to his own drummer. In the Secret History of Reggae music, that label took on mythic undertones without sacrificing the impeccable quality of 70’s Roots Reggae.
In fact, when I ‘n’ I upload these Reggae Radio showcases I can them the Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives in a backwards tribute to him.
The Black Ark. From the Hebrew Ark of the Covenant buried in a church in Ethiopia. Beyond cool!
In Reggae, we collector obsessives are often more interested in labels and producers than performers. When I ‘n’ I started building my collection in the late 80’s, it became very easy to just automatically add Perry’s productions/performances as the epitome of quality.
Especially through the Mango label, the penultimate releases from the likes of Junior Murvin (Police & Thieves), Max Romeo (War in a Babylon) and The Congos (Heart of the Congos).
It had everything that originally attracted I ‘n’ I to Reggae music: great lyrics about Rastafari love, the story of downtrodden Jamaicans living in the Diaspora (Babylon) and this throbbing bass.
At the Black Ark, Perry was notorious for dumping all of his instruments onto one track. It overloaded everything to the point that your monitors were over-bassed. Then he would cut that murky sound with a slicing high hat and cymbal crash. It had a sort of “stone skipping on water” buoyancy.
The vocals were on the second track. How he captured that sound on primitive Jamaican recording equipment speaks to his prowess as a producer/engineer.
There was often times when I ‘n’ I would purchase a new disk or LP and hear that trademark cavernous sound and think, “That’s a Black Ark recording.” And sure enough, even if the LP was produced by another label. Engineering credit was Lee’s
Recorded at the Black Ark. Mixed by Lee “Scratch” Perry
Another of his hallmarks was the “moaning cow”. He would do some strange flange technique that would approximate that groaning bovine. I’ve pulled the clip for you to hear:
https://smilejamaicakrcl.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/moaningcow.mp3
Lee definitely had some mental health/paranoia issues and eventually the hanger’s ons, the skylarkers, the follow fashion dreads who would hang out and shift coke and eat pork made him destroy the Black Ark Studio to get away from that bad mojo. He painted black X’s over everything. The console, the monitor speakers, the walls. Eventually I think the studio, located behind Lee’s house, burned down.
That lead to about 15 years in the wilderness. Middling releases. A lot of stream of consciousness jive with forgettable Reggae players.
Lee was sued by Chris Blackwell for calling him a vampire who killed Bob Marley for his royalties.
I am stud! I do not drink blood!
He got his second act with three major events
Perhaps I ‘n’ I favorite Reggae LP of all time. Reissued and expanded
In the wake of the Blood & Fire reissue, a lot of legit and gray market Black Ark disks and LP’s flooded the shops. Lee moved to Switzerland married a wealthy Swiss gal decades younger.
If you check him on discogs, he issued dozens of LPs and CDs of middling quality: some techno, a lot of Mutant Dub, a lot profane rhyming couplets. He definitely was the eminence grise of Reggae music and enjoyed his notoriety.
I ‘n’ I have a few stories I could tell that don’t put in a good light, but those imperfections make him human and flawed like all of us.
If you still buy those round aluminum coaster thingees. Here is the epitome of his best Black Ark work of classics and obscurities.
Jah’s Heavenly Choir has a new mixing board and you can hear Lee’s maniacal cackle lively up the place.
Bless, Bobbylon
Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives: Sept. 4, 20201 Playlist
Set 1:
Set 2:
Set 3:
Set 4:
Set 5:
Set 6:
View all episodes
Greetings,
KRCL is building a new studio and so all Summer we have been building shows from home. I ‘n’ I was putting together an entirely different Smile Jamaica. It was a beautiful Sunday morning and I caught an alert on my phone from Rolling Stone Magazine:
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/lee-scratch-perry-dead-obit-1045198/
Damn. First U Roy. Then Bunny Wailer. Now Lee. For me, Lee “Scratch” Perry epitomized what I loved about Reggae music. He was there at the beginning of ska. Brought the Wailers their riddim section and he was a giant in the Reggae mythos via his Black Ark studio.
A mad genius who marched to his own drummer. In the Secret History of Reggae music, that label took on mythic undertones without sacrificing the impeccable quality of 70’s Roots Reggae.
In fact, when I ‘n’ I upload these Reggae Radio showcases I can them the Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives in a backwards tribute to him.
The Black Ark. From the Hebrew Ark of the Covenant buried in a church in Ethiopia. Beyond cool!
In Reggae, we collector obsessives are often more interested in labels and producers than performers. When I ‘n’ I started building my collection in the late 80’s, it became very easy to just automatically add Perry’s productions/performances as the epitome of quality.
Especially through the Mango label, the penultimate releases from the likes of Junior Murvin (Police & Thieves), Max Romeo (War in a Babylon) and The Congos (Heart of the Congos).
It had everything that originally attracted I ‘n’ I to Reggae music: great lyrics about Rastafari love, the story of downtrodden Jamaicans living in the Diaspora (Babylon) and this throbbing bass.
At the Black Ark, Perry was notorious for dumping all of his instruments onto one track. It overloaded everything to the point that your monitors were over-bassed. Then he would cut that murky sound with a slicing high hat and cymbal crash. It had a sort of “stone skipping on water” buoyancy.
The vocals were on the second track. How he captured that sound on primitive Jamaican recording equipment speaks to his prowess as a producer/engineer.
There was often times when I ‘n’ I would purchase a new disk or LP and hear that trademark cavernous sound and think, “That’s a Black Ark recording.” And sure enough, even if the LP was produced by another label. Engineering credit was Lee’s
Recorded at the Black Ark. Mixed by Lee “Scratch” Perry
Another of his hallmarks was the “moaning cow”. He would do some strange flange technique that would approximate that groaning bovine. I’ve pulled the clip for you to hear:
https://smilejamaicakrcl.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/moaningcow.mp3
Lee definitely had some mental health/paranoia issues and eventually the hanger’s ons, the skylarkers, the follow fashion dreads who would hang out and shift coke and eat pork made him destroy the Black Ark Studio to get away from that bad mojo. He painted black X’s over everything. The console, the monitor speakers, the walls. Eventually I think the studio, located behind Lee’s house, burned down.
That lead to about 15 years in the wilderness. Middling releases. A lot of stream of consciousness jive with forgettable Reggae players.
Lee was sued by Chris Blackwell for calling him a vampire who killed Bob Marley for his royalties.
I am stud! I do not drink blood!
He got his second act with three major events
Perhaps I ‘n’ I favorite Reggae LP of all time. Reissued and expanded
In the wake of the Blood & Fire reissue, a lot of legit and gray market Black Ark disks and LP’s flooded the shops. Lee moved to Switzerland married a wealthy Swiss gal decades younger.
If you check him on discogs, he issued dozens of LPs and CDs of middling quality: some techno, a lot of Mutant Dub, a lot profane rhyming couplets. He definitely was the eminence grise of Reggae music and enjoyed his notoriety.
I ‘n’ I have a few stories I could tell that don’t put in a good light, but those imperfections make him human and flawed like all of us.
If you still buy those round aluminum coaster thingees. Here is the epitome of his best Black Ark work of classics and obscurities.
Jah’s Heavenly Choir has a new mixing board and you can hear Lee’s maniacal cackle lively up the place.
Bless, Bobbylon
Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives: Sept. 4, 20201 Playlist
Set 1:
Set 2:
Set 3:
Set 4:
Set 5:
Set 6: