Lee "Scratch" Perry took the title Upsetter while his contemporiaries chose royal Titles like King Tubby or Prince Jammy. "Scratch" the man is half flesh and half myth. Sometimes the actual person is stranger than the fiction. Lee Perry is a brilliant but maniacal producer of sounds.
This is a whole made of sums. This nicely collects togther choice singles, album sides and dubs from "Scratch" the solo performer and "Scratch" the genious behind the controls. Passengers on his Black Ark may of found themselves bewildered but also found themselves at the top of the charts. Check the names. All seventies superstars! What? Out of print? Morons! Allright, try this one...
This is a great overall sampling of Scratch's legacy.
Disc one begins Scratch's history with head strong but straight forward productions of ska and rocksteady singers. These tunes are great long lost treasures that hopefully will never be buried again.
Disc two is where that outerworldly sound started leaking from Scratch's pysche. This is the Scratch as a genius or certifiable madman emerging! His touch at the controls was as important as the band playing the music.
Disc three is Scratch as Jamaica's Native Son swallowed up into the belly of the beast! He is living in Babylon (America, then Europe). You can accuse Scratch of having an avant-garde approach, maybe because of the bone-chilling cold winters, his touch at the controls changed. Some of this stuff would give the shivers to German electronic pioneers Kraftwerk. Like disc two, it still has that outerworldly vibe, only now it is more like a ghost in the machine.
I don't sing to my plants when I water them, I spin Super Ape. To get a jungle you need the Full Experience. Seeps down deep to reach the Underground Root. If you don't own this, your garden won't grow.
There is something so ethereal about this record. It could be Junior's falsetto. It could be that the tracks were looped through Lee Perry's frontal lobes!
Lee Scratch Perry helped Bob find himself vocally, but Lee's hand is all in the band's sound as well. Most Marley fans consider these original versions collected here, to be his and the Wailer's greatest effort. Most of these were later reproduced for Blackwell's label Island and became Reggae standards. Nothing tho, as they say, is better than the original! Includes extra tracks (Upsetter dubs)-all necessary.
Lee Perry's backing band would be thieved away by Bob and rechristened the Wailers. This is a late 70's edition of that band. The long lanky gentleman standing up on the left is Cedric Myton. Which is a nice lead into the next up band...
Cedric's falsetto took this earth rooted harmony trio to the heavens. So perfect was this debut, that everything released after was judged unfairly against it. Everybody wanted more of the same and with Perry absent at the controls for subsequent releases, the Congos moved into other directions. Thankfully, Cedric is still hitting high notes that only dogs can hear!
The VP Records version of the release with a slightly different mix.
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