If I had to pick one reggae artist who most deserves more
attention then (s)he has received, it would probably be
Junior Byles.
He was gifted with a beautiful voice and an ability
to convey a lot of emotion with it.
Which he did, on some deadly serious songs
like “Beat Down Babylon,” “Demonstration,” and “Fade Away.”
Even a love song like “Curly Locks” has as a subtext a
plea against discrimination.
Most of Byles's early work —
indeed, much of his finest output —
was produced by Perry, and it deserves a wider audience.
The two met in the late 1960s when they were
employed by music executive Joe Gibbs, Byles as lead
singer of the Versatiles,
Perry as Gibbs' house producer.
When Byles decided to start a solo career, in 1970,
he turned to a now independent Perry to help him.
Something I learned today:
A 5th generation ipod will sync songs in .aiff format.
It will let the user select those songs and
press the play button.
But it won't actually play the songs.
For that, you gotta use a different format.
(I went with .m4a.)
Early in Lee Perry's career as an independent producer,
he recorded a slew of instrumentals credited to his
house band, The Upsetters.
For song titles, Perry took inspiration from
Spaghetti Westerns.
Like many reggae artists, he loved that film genre.
A quick glance at his output includes
“High Plains Drifter”
“Dig Your Grave”
“Big John Wayne”
“The Man With No Name”
“Amigo”
Let's add to that list “Return of Django,” my favorite of
the late 60s/early 70s Perry instrumentals.
The strangest looking icicles I've ever seen.
A deer on Whidbey Island, part 1
Note: file size is
11.3 or 8.5 MB,
depending on which format your browser supports.
I don't know much about Junior Dread outside of the two
toasting
records he made for producer Lee Perry.
One is a solid outing over a dub mix of the Heptones'
“Sufferer's Time.”
The other is “A Wah Dat,” cut on an otherwise unused rhythm
(or, if it was used elsewhere, I'm unaware).
Both are sufferer's tunes, so-called because they
express the plight of suffering people.
But “A Wah Dat” is, for me, the better of the two.
The lyrics are a first-hand account of desperation
and mounting financial trouble during the Christmas
season:
Christmas a come
And me soon get a next son
And that's no fun yuh!
No no no no no no
In 1968, reggae pioneer Lee “Scratch” Perry launched his first
record label, Upset Records, with the single “People Funny Boy.”
The title might seem odd, but try this: mentally insert a comma
so that it reads “People Funny, Boy.” It's a complaint, as in
“boy, people are funny.”
That raises the question: who was Perry complaining about?
Who was acting “funny?”
The answer: his former employer, Joel Gibson,
AKA Joe Gibbs.
Working for Joe Gibbs
Two years earlier, Perry had begun working for Gibbs,
ostensibly a music producer.
In reality, Gibbs was not a music producer, but an executive producer —
he financed the operation.
Perry was the music producer. He scouted talent, supervised
sessions, arranged and wrote songs, and promoted records that
appeared on Gibbs' Amalgamated and Pressure Beat labels.
In 1969, Lee Perry produced one of the first ever
deejay records,
“Rightful Ruler” by U-Roy and Peter Tosh.
And as I wrote in my list of
recommended U-Roy records,
it is a remarkable record.
First, recording a
deejay artist
on a reused rhythm track was a novel idea at the time.
Second, the rhythm track, originally used for a song called “Selassie,”
was substantially changed for U-Roy's cut.
Most early deejay records use an instrumental mix of a
record as the backing track, replacing vocals with
deejay rhymes.
For “Rightful Ruler,” Perry did much more:
Reggae and dub pioneer
Lee “Scratch” Perry passed away
in August of this year.
Perry is my single favorite musical artist.
I'd have a hard time counting the number of albums and singles I own
that feature him as a vocalist, producer, or mixer.
Since I have so much of his music,
I've decided to write about songs or albums he recorded that I think
you should hear.
Readers of this website — by my best guess, all two of you! — will note that
I have twice criticized
NPR
for errors in obituary/remembrance pieces for reggae artists,
first for deejay
U-Roy
and a second time for singer
Bunny Wailer.
Well, I'm at it again. This time, the subject is my single favorite
musical artist, Lee “Scratch” Perry.
I woke up early this morning and recorded this audio at my open window.
NPR's
afternoon news program
All Things Considered
aired a remembrance of
Neville Livingston, known to reggae fans as
Bunny Wailer,
who passed away
Bunny was one of the founding members of
The Wailers,
whence came his adopted last name.
He wasn't as well known as his bandmates
Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, but NPR nevertheless felt he
deserved recognition for his contributions to the group.
Yet the piece largely passed over those contributions,
making it seem like he was only a backup singer until he
went solo.
A couple of days ago, I chided
NPR's
“Here and Now”
program for choosing a less-than-stellar record to
excerpt in their
U-Roy obituary.
After hearing the piece, I compiled a short list
of U-Roy recordings from my collection that,
in my humble opionion, would have been better
examples of his work. And
certainly worth listening to even if you're not
producing an on-air tribute to the deejay
originator.
