Over the years much has been said about the influence of Jamaican artist on hip hop and American music, but not much has been written about Jamaican producers who have impacted the North American music industry.
As Caribbean-America hertiage month comes to an end The Grio Magazine, owned by Entertainment Studios, Inc., also known as Allen Media Group, based in Los Angeles, names Lee Scratch Perry one of 8 black producers who changed music.
The article describes Perry as “a big part of why so much Caribbean music has left an imprint on American music.”
The list of producers analyzed by Brooklyn-based TV producer, Matthew Allen says,
“Lee “Scratch” Perry’s innovation of dub music and experimentation with extending instruments and incorporating sound effects in the studio has been indelible for Black American music and reggae alike.”
Lee, now deceased is the Jamaican record producer, composer and singer is noted for his innovative studio techniques and production style. Perry was a pioneer in the 1970s development of dub music with his early adoption of remixing and studio effects to create new instrumental or vocal versions of existing reggae tracks. He worked with and produced for a wide variety of artists, including Bob Marley and the Wailers, Junior Murvin, The Congos, Max Romeo, Adrian Sherwood, Beastie Boys, Ari Up, The Clash, The Orb, and many others.
With over 69 solo albums to his credit, and 6 compilations, he has one Grammy award and 5 nominations.
Perry credits dominoes for helping him to think and read the mind of others.
“My father worked on the road, my mother in the fields. We were very poor. I went to school… I learned nothing at all. Everything I have learned has come from nature,” Perry told NME in 1984. “When I left school there was nothing to do except field work. Hard, hard labor. I didn’t fancy that. So I started playing dominoes. Through dominoes I practiced my mind and learned to read the minds of others. This has proved eternally useful to me.”
His music career began in the late Fifties selling records for Clement “Coxsone” Dodd’s Downbeat Sound System; by the early Sixties, Dodd opened his famed Studio One, where Perry — nicknamed “Little” at the time, due to his 4’11″ stature — got his first experience in the recording studio, producing a few dozens song for the label.
“Coxsone never wanted to give a country boy a chance. No way. He took my songs and gave them to people like Delroy Wilson. I got no credit, certainly no money. I was being screwed.”
After disagreements with Dodd, Perry switch allegiance to Joe Gibbs’ rival label Amalgamated Records, where he continued to produce in addition to furthering his own recording career as lead artist. Disagreements between the eccentric Perry and Gibbs resulted in “Scratch” finally forming his own label Upsetter Records.
His 1968 single “People Funny Boy,” a slam at Gibbs, became a Top Five hit in the UK and in 1973, Perry was able to build his own backyard studio in Kingston, which he named “the Black Ark.” Here, Perry’s artistic endeavors led him to push the limits of the recording studio’s relatively antiquated capabilities to create his “versions.” As the architect of the remixed sound, Perry would layer (or overdub) his own rhythms and riddims with repetitive vocal hooks lifted from other songs — providing the blueprint for sampling in other genres — along with deep, reverberating bass, errant sound effects and disembodied horn melodies, all stewed together.
“The bass is the brain, and the drum is the heart,” Perry told Rolling Stone in 2010. “I listen to my body to find the beat. From there, it’s just experimenting with the sounds of the animals in the ark.”
Read full list of TheGrio’s game changing professors which also includes Timbaland, James Brown and Prince here.
