And the Clash? Startled at first, it only took a couple of bars for them both to dig it. Both men were elated, as if rediscovering a long-lost part of themselves. Clearly, the reggae master was thrilled to be reunited with his own early mentor. Once heard, his dub productions’ space-bending textures, defying logic, would alter a listeners’ concept of sound for always.īut though I had covered Marley for a while (and very briefly, done his PR), I had never found the two together, or seen Bob so gleeful to be with anyone. Brown,” the most edgy, eerie Wailers’ song. For it was the visionary Scratch - impish, zany, forever keeping you guessing - who really pushed their sound forward in the 1960s, when the Wailers were a hot local ska trio. I was surprised to find Bob Marley sitting with him Scratch was staying in an apartment over the studio where Marley, a fugitive after an attempt on his life in Kingston, was recording Exodus and everyone in the room knew that Bob might not be the international superstar he already was had it not been for Scratch. That said, King Scratch's format, focusing mostly on singles while including numerous rare and alternate versions, makes it both an ideal starting point for novices as well as a must for longtime fans, not unlike 1997's vital Arkology.It was a sunny Saturday afternoon in 1977 London when I popped in to visit the already-legendary dub creator Lee “Scratch” Perry to get his reaction to a new version by the Clash of his song about corruption “Police and Thieves.” I was curious – Joe Strummer’s rasp was so different from the angelic falsetto of the original singer, a policeman from Port Antonio named Junior Murvin. It would be nearly impossible to compile a truly definitive anthology of Perry's daunting body of work - even an exhaustive dozen-disc box would likely miss some essentials and leave several corners of his discography untouched. demonstrate the hallmarks of Scratch's later work, from his inimitable creaky vocals and free-associative wordplay to his still-unconventional approach to production, with multiple voices and strange, ear-catching noises layered in the mix. A warped take on Bob Marley's "Exodus," here included in a rare 7" mix, and the title track to the Grammy-winning Jamaican E.T. The final stretch of the compilation concentrates on solo Scratch, including late-era Black Ark recordings like "Bafflin' Smoke Signal," then ending with two cuts that appeared on Trojan-issued albums from the early 2000s. The two songs included by the Congos originate from the same time period as the 1977 opus Heart of the Congos, a truly visionary fusion of Rastafarian roots lyrics and Perry's otherworldly sonics, though neither track appeared on the original album. Similarly, Max Romeo's "Chase the Devil" (known to ravers for being sampled by the Prodigy on the 1992 single "Out of Space") leads into Perry's truly wild "Disco Devil," which dunks the same rhythm in a vat of acidic distortion and echo. These include undisputed timeless classics like Susan Cadogan's "Hurt So Good" (a Top Five hit in the U.K.) and Junior Murvin's "Police and Thieves" appearing in a 12" mix accompanied by DJ Jah Lion.
A considerable amount of Perry's best-known productions is on here, with many of them included in rare or previously unreleased mixes largely unheard outside of Jamaica.
For the most part, the compilation concentrates on songs Perry produced for other artists rather than dub versions and experiments, with a large percentage being concise 7" single mixes, and only a handful constituting extended 12" versions or album cuts. The collection mainly focuses on Perry's work from the '60s and '70s, from early rocksteady singles (like his own "People Funny Boy," a vicious putdown of former employer Joe Gibbs, and Upsetters tracks like "Return of Django") to productions from his legendary Black Ark studio, with only a taste of his later output at the end of the set. Appearing a year after Lee "Scratch" Perry's death at the age of 85, King Scratch is the late musician's first posthumous anthology, though far from his first compilation issued by Trojan Records.
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