World of Jamaican Music

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An illustrated map of the creators of Jamaican music and how they are connected.

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Lee "Scratch" Perry

Producer. Ska, rocksteady, reggae, dub

Active
1960s-2021
Sunrise
March 20, 1936, Kendal, Hanover, Jamaica
Sunset
August 29, 2021, Lucea, Hanover, Jamaica
Also recorded as
The Upsetter

Lee "Scratch" Perry (born Rainford Hugh Perry) was a producer, singer and studio experimenter whose records are central to the arrival of reggae, to the development of dub, and to the idea of the studio as an instrument rather than a room.

He was born at Kendal in Hanover, the third of four children of Ina Davis and Henry Perry, both laborers, left school at fourteen, and moved to Kingston. By Katz's account he went first to Duke Reid, who would not record his voice but passed his lyrics to Stranger Cole for "Rough and Tough," and answered Perry's complaint with violence. He spent roughly five years working for Coxsone Dodd: selling records for the Downbeat sound system, minding it, scouting talent, arranging, and eventually recording close to thirty sides of his own. One of them, "Chicken Scratch," gave him his nickname. He fell out with Dodd and moved to Joe Gibbs's Amalgamated operation, where he answered him with "I Am the Upsetter," then fell out with Gibbs in turn and left in 1968.

"People Funny Boy," issued on the Upset label, was a direct attack on Gibbs. Its fast, heavily accented rhythm, which Perry said he took from a Pocomania church service, is one of the two or three records usually named in accounts of how reggae emerged from rocksteady. It sold in the tens of thousands in Jamaica, and after it he set up his own Upsetter label. A run of Upsetters instrumentals with spaghetti-western titles followed, of which "Return of Django" reached number five in Britain in 1969, helped along by a Cadbury advertisement, and took the band on a British tour.

His most consequential alliance began when the Wailers came to him. In a short but productive spell they cut "Duppy Conqueror," "Small Axe," "Kaya," "Sun Is Shining" and "400 Years," issued as Soul Rebels and Soul Revolution, with the Barrett brothers moving across from the Hippy Boys to become the group's rhythm section. Trojan repackaged the material in 1973 as African Herbsman. Ownership of those recordings was disputed for decades afterward.

He built the Black Ark in the yard of his house in Washington Gardens, opened it at the end of 1973 or in 1974, and worked there for about five years on a four-track deck, layering, filtering and overdubbing until the results no longer resembled the equipment that produced them. The gear was modest: a four-track Soundcraft board and Teac recorder, an Echoplex delay and a Roland Space Echo run through a phaser, with circuitry designed by King Tubby. With only four tracks he kept bouncing two onto one to make room for more, and each bounce blurred the edges, so that the parts bled into one another in a warm, woody haze that softened even songs of confrontation such as "War Ina Babylon" and "Chase the Devil." For rhythm he used real percussion rather than effects, often playing it himself, and he worked barefoot, dancing through the sessions. The records made there include Junior Murvin's "Police and Thieves," Max Romeo's War Ina Babylon, the Heptones' Party Time, the Congos' Heart of the Congos, Susan Cadogan's "Hurt So Good," which reached the British top five in 1975, and his own "Roast Fish Collie Weed and Corn Bread." The Clash brought him to London to produce "Complete Control" in 1977. He shut the studio to outsiders in 1979, and it was later destroyed by fire.

He spent the rest of his life outside Jamaica, mostly in Britain and then in Switzerland, where he lived with Mireille Campbell, whom he married. He recorded Time Boom X De Devil Dead with Adrian Sherwood in 1987, made four volumes of Black Ark material with Mad Professor at Ariwa from 1989, appeared on the Beastie Boys' "Dr. Lee, PhD" in 1998, had Andrew W.K. produce Repentance in 2008, and made an album with the Orb in 2012. Jamaican E.T., recorded in Coventry with Roger Lomas and issued by Trojan in 2002, won the Grammy for best reggae album the following year.

He was awarded a Gold Musgrave Medal by the Institute of Jamaica in 2013 and held the Order of Distinction. Much of what circulates about him is his own invention, delivered in riddles and repeated as fact; the account here keeps to what the recordings and the documented sessions support. He departed at Noel Holmes Hospital in Lucea, Hanover, aged eighty-five.

Last updated October 31, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. The Rough Guide credits the Black Ark's appeal to listeners "interested in the use of the studio itself as a musical instrument." Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 174. Bradley calls him "the decade's one true genius." Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 365.
  2. Katz, his biographer, gives Kendal, his registration as Rainford Hugh Perry, his place as the third of four children, and his parents as Henry Perry, a road worker, and Ina Davis, who worked the land, and says he left school at fourteen and went to Kingston "around 1961" (here and below, Katz's article appears in Portuguese translation): David Katz, "Lee 'Scratch' Perry: xamã musical da Jamaica, o homem-espírito da Black Ark," Revista Brasileira do Caribe 11, no. 22 (January-June 2011): 137, 139-40, https://www.periodicoseletronicos.ufma.br/index.php/rbrascaribe/article/download/662/419/2232. The Guardian says he moved to Kingston "in the early 60s." Peter Mason, "Lee 'Scratch' Perry Obituary," Guardian, August 29, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/aug/29/lee-scratch-perry-obituary. Bradley, however, places him at Coxsone's Downbeat in the mid- to late 1950s. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 30.
  3. Katz, "Lee 'Scratch' Perry," 140-41. Bradley and the Rough Guide call it Stranger Cole's record, the Rough Guide among Reid's 1962 productions, and neither mentions Perry. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 57; Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 95.
  4. Bradley calls him a Downbeat employee "strictly on the creative side" who, with Prince Buster, often defended Coxsone's gear from Duke Reid's men. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 30. The Guardian says he helped Dodd "by talent spotting, arranging sessions in the studio and writing songs," recorded from 1961, and split with Dodd in 1966; the Rough Guide has him producing Delroy Wilson for Coxsone by late 1962. Mason, "Lee 'Scratch' Perry Obituary." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 36.
  5. The Guardian: "Among his early output of around 30 singles was Chicken Scratch, the song that gave him his nickname." Mason, "Lee 'Scratch' Perry Obituary." The Rough Guide notes that Dodd never issued an album of these sides. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 39.
  6. The Rough Guide says Gibbs hired Perry, "who had just left Coxsone," to supervise sessions in January 1967, and that "I Am the Upsetter," Perry's "barbed message to his former employer," was among the first Amalgamated releases. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 76. Bradley describes his "rancorous departure" from Gibbs, who replaced him with Niney. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 226.
  7. Bradley says Perry "sticks it to former employer Joe Gibbs," and that Clancy Eccles arranged the record; the Rough Guide says the engineer Lynford Anderson collaborated on it in mid-1968. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 198-99; Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 87. Discogs lists the Jamaican pressing on Upset and describes Upset as one of Perry's labels; the Rough Guide calls Upset Anderson's "own" label. "Lee (King) Perry / Burt Walters, People Funny Boy," Discogs, accessed October 2, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/3635628; "Upset," label profile, Discogs, accessed October 2, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/label/679963.
  8. Bradley notes its "slightly faster tempo," and the Rough Guide a rhythm "a lot faster than rocksteady." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 198; Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 87. The Rough Guide says Perry "is said to have been inspired" by Pocomania rhythms "heard as he was passing a church on his way to a session." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 5. Both books name Larry Marshall's "Nanny Goat" and the Beltones' "No More Heartaches" as the records more often credited with the change. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 200; Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 87. Katz also traces it to Pocomania church music: Katz, "Lee 'Scratch' Perry," 142.
  9. Bradley: "in 1968, after 'People Funny Boy', set up his own appropriately named Upsetter label." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 229. Wikipedia gives sales of 60,000 copies in Jamaica. "Lee 'Scratch' Perry," Wikipedia, accessed October 2, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_%22Scratch%22_Perry.
  10. The Official Charts Company lists "Return of Django"/"Dollar in the Teeth" from October 4, 1969, with a peak of five and fifteen weeks on the chart. "Upsetters," Official Charts, accessed October 2, 2026, https://www.officialcharts.com/artist/13780/upsetters/. Bradley notes it at number five on the chart of November 15, 1969, and Dave Barker recalled Perry returning from "a tour of England - I think it was about four weeks." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 242, 340.
  11. The Rough Guide says the Wailers' time with Perry was "quite short - less than a year between August 1970 and April 1971 - but extremely productive"; Bradley dates the start to 1969. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 138; Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 227, 229. Discogs lists Soul Rebels (1970) and Soul Revolution Part II (1971) on Upsetter. "Bob Marley and the Wailers, Soul Rebels," Discogs, accessed October 2, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/master/79398; "Bob Marley and the Wailers, Soul Revolution Part II," Discogs, accessed October 2, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/master/192201. The Rough Guide identifies the Upsetters as "Max Romeo's old band the Hippy Boys," with the Barrett brothers, and says the pair then became the Wailers' rhythm section. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 128, 137. Katz says the Wailers stopped working with Perry at the end of 1971, taking the core of the Upsetters with them: Katz, "Lee 'Scratch' Perry," 144.
  12. Discogs dates Trojan's African Herbsman to 1973. "Bob Marley and the Wailers, African Herbsman," Discogs, accessed October 2, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/master/100552. The Guardian says Perry sold the Wailers tapes to Trojan "and pocket[ed] the money for himself." Mason, "Lee 'Scratch' Perry Obituary."
  13. Bradley says he opened the studio in 1974 "at the house he had bought at 5 Cardiff Crescent," with circuitry designed by King Tubby and a four-track Soundcraft board, and that constant "bouncing down" produced its density. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 325, 328. The Guardian says he "began building" it in 1973 and worked there "for the next five years." Mason, "Lee 'Scratch' Perry Obituary." Katz dates the opening to the end of 1973 and says most of the studio's work was recorded on a small four-track Teac, with the Soundcraft board and a Mu-Tron phaser added after the success of "Hurt So Good" and Junior Byles's "Curly Locks": Katz, "Lee 'Scratch' Perry," 147-48.
  14. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 325, 328.
  15. The Rough Guide covers "Police & Thieves," "War Ina Babylon," the Heptones' Party Time, and Heart of the Congos, "the most consistently brilliant album of Scratch's entire career." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 175-77. Bradley quotes an account of "Hurt So Good" reaching "number 4 in the mainstream pop charts"; the Official Charts Company gives a peak of four and twelve weeks in 1975. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 442; "Susan Cadogan," Official Charts, accessed October 2, 2026, https://www.officialcharts.com/artist/15305/susan-cadogan/. Katz notes that Island, which issued War Ina Babylon, Police and Thieves and Party Time, refused Heart of the Congos and Perry's own Roast Fish, Collie Weed and Corn Bread from 1978: Katz, "Lee 'Scratch' Perry," 148-49.
  16. The CBS single, issued September 23, 1977, credits Lee Perry and Mickey Foote as producers of "Complete Control." "The Clash, Complete Control," Discogs, accessed October 2, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/371052.
  17. The Rough Guide: "When he destroyed the studio in 1979, this unique and wonderful sound was lost for ever." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 225. Katz says that early in 1979, after an emotional collapse, Perry closed the Black Ark to outsiders and covered its walls with graffiti, that an attempt to rebuild it in 1980 failed, and that he set fire to it in the summer of 1983: Katz, "Lee 'Scratch' Perry," 150-51, 153. The Guardian dates the fire to 1979 and says he was arrested for arson and released for lack of evidence; NPR, like Katz, gives 1983. Mason, "Lee 'Scratch' Perry Obituary." Neda Ulaby, "Lee 'Scratch' Perry, Visionary Reggae Producer, Dies at 85," NPR, August 29, 2021, https://www.npr.org/2021/08/29/1032226388/reggae-lee-scratch-perry-dies.
  18. The Guardian says he went to the United States, Amsterdam, London (in 1984), and Switzerland, married Mireille Campbell-Rüegg in 1991, and that "the couple returned to Jamaica in 2020." Mason, "Lee 'Scratch' Perry Obituary." Variety also gives 1991 for the marriage. Chris Willman and Chris Morris, "Reggae Legend Lee 'Scratch' Perry Dies at 85," Variety, August 29, 2021, https://variety.com/2021/music/obituaries-people-news/lee-scratch-perry-dead-reggae-dub-jamaican-pioneer-1235051300/.
  19. Discogs credits Adrian Sherwood and Perry as producers of Time Boom X De Devil Dead (On-U Sound, 1987) and Andrew W.K. as co-producer of Repentance (2008), and lists The Orbserver in the Star House (2012). "Lee Perry and Dub Syndicate, Time Boom X De Devil Dead," Discogs, accessed October 2, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/729501; "Lee Perry, Repentance," Discogs, accessed October 2, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/1859951; "The Orb featuring Lee Scratch Perry, The Orbserver in the Star House," Discogs, accessed October 2, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/master/467049. Wikipedia lists the Mad Professor collaborations from Mystic Warrior (1989) and "Dr. Lee, PhD" on the Beastie Boys' Hello Nasty (1998). "Lee 'Scratch' Perry."
  20. Discogs credits Roger Lomas as recording engineer and co-producer of the Trojan album, recorded at Ro-Lo Studios. "Lee Scratch Perry, Jamaican E.T.," Discogs, accessed October 2, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/1493773. The award came at the 45th Grammy Awards (2003). "Lee 'Scratch' Perry," Grammy Awards, accessed October 2, 2026, https://www.grammy.com/artists/lee-scratch-perry/9749/.
  21. The Institute of Jamaica presented the Gold Musgrave Medal on October 16, 2013. Athaliah Reynolds-Baker, "Eight Outstanding Jamaicans Awarded Musgrave Medals," Jamaica Information Service, October 18, 2013, https://jis.gov.jm/eight-outstanding-jamaicans-awarded-musgrave-medals/. Wikipedia, citing the Jamaica Observer, dates the Order of Distinction (Commander class) to August 2012. "Lee 'Scratch' Perry."
  22. NPR reported that he died in a hospital in Lucea; Wikipedia, citing the Guardian, names Noel Holmes Hospital. Ulaby, "Lee 'Scratch' Perry." "Lee 'Scratch' Perry."

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