Bob Marley producer Lee “Scratch” Perry is dead

Published on : 08/30/2021 – 10:33

Reggae legend, producer, songwriter and singer Lee “Scratch” Perry, best known for guiding Bob Marley, died Sunday August 29 at age 85, Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness announced.

“Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry died this morning while in Noel Holmes Hospital. He was 85 years old,” the Prime Minister said in a statement posted on his twitter account.

“Sorcier du reggae”, “Salvador Dali du dub” (continuation of reggae based on echoes), “The Upsetter” (“The pain in the ass”): nicknames abound for this elusive and striking figure in the history of music that has notably worked with the Beastie Boys and the Wailers.

Lee “Scratch” Perry is the man who pushed Bob Marly Marley to the top. “Without him, Bob Marley might have remained an orphan arrow in his bow,” wrote producer specialist Francis Dordor in Les Inrockuptibles.

Born in 1936 in Kendal, Jamaica, Rainford Hugh “Lee” Perry left school at age 15 before moving to Kingston in the 1960s. “My dad worked on the streets, my mom in the fields. were very poor, “he told British rock magazine New Musicalm Express (NME) in 1984. “I didn’t learn anything at school. I learned everything in the street”.

He had founded his own studio in Kingston, the Jamaican capital where many titles were produced which allowed reggae to spread around the world.

With AFP