IN his final interview with biographer David Katz, Lee Perry explained his somewhat unsteady relationship with Planet Earth. “I’m living here because I don’t have anywhere else to live at the moment,” he said, “but I’m not coming from here.” Concluding with the producer’s death aged 85 in August, this new edition of People Funny Boy: The Genius Of Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry enhances an already impressive piece of research, capturing the cosmic quality of the reggae polymath’s work without flinching from the entirely worldly problems that lurked behind it.
A hustler, tractor driver and domino player whose dancing skills helped to earn him a place in Jamaica’s pre-ska music scene, Perry made up for a lack of traditional skills (he was very much not a singer) by making filthy novelty records and then pioneering sci-fi sounds. “Scratch is an extraordinary individual,” engineer Sylvan Morris attests. “He creates things which is abnormal and unusual.”