Enigmatic artist-songwriter-producer Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry has played a significant role in shaping the sound of popular Jamaican music through a succession of sublime and often ground-breaking recordings.
Soon after launching his Upsetter Records label in 1968, he produced the internationally successful 7” single ‘Return Of Django’ c/w ‘Dollar In The Teeth’, which reached number 5 in the UK charts the following year. Further best selling singles and albums immediately followed, and late in 1973 he opened his Black Ark studio from where he set about creating an astounding body of work that included an array of major reggae hits, performed by some of Jamaica’s finest talents.
This 2CD collection, released to coincide with Lee Perry’s 80th birthday, features 40 of his most significant productions from the sixties and seventies, with highlights including the aforementioned Upsetters’ double-header, ‘Hurt So Good’, ‘Curly Locks’, ’Mr Cop’ and ‘Sipple Out Deh’ aka ‘War Ina Babylon’