Move Out of My Way

From slap bang in the middle of the 1970s comes Bunny Clarke, aka Bunny Rugs, soon to become lead vocalist with Third World, but here in a solo stylee with the follow up to his cover of 'To Love Somebody', which, confusingly, he recorded as Bunny Scott.....I hope you're taking notes, there'll be a test later. The tune in question is 'Move Out of My Way', a militant Lee 'Scratch' Perry produced groover that didn't trouble the chart compilers of the day to any great extent. What it did do, however, was spawn a number of dubs and versions, including this oddly disturbing example, released under the title 'Kojak', by Perry himself on the 'Revolution Dub' LP later the same year. With the titular lollypop-sucking cop playing on the TV in the background as he works, Scratch retains just enough of Clarke's vocal to inject disorientating stabs into an eerily stripped back rhythm track, which I've always found a little unsettling, but perhaps that's just me. Who loves ya baby?

Bunny Rugs & the Upsetters - Move Out of My Way

Lee Perry - Kojak

Friday Photo(s) #49

Dad would've loved to have visited New York. He had a life long fascination with the city and would no doubt have spent hours walking its alleys, streets and neighbourhoods, but by the time my cousin relocated to the Big Apple in the 1980s and invited him over, it was already too late. The mobility issues that dogged his later life were beginning to take hold and he knew in his heart that he wouldn't have been physically capable of doing the things he really wanted to do, which would have frustrated him enormously. So he never made it there, but enjoyed hearing about my exploits whenever I returned from a stay with my cousin and I got into the habit of buying him a book about some aspect of New York each time. I got him one on the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge and another about the growth of the subway system, but his favourite was the one I picked up about the history of the Staten Island Ferry. If Dad could have been magically transported to New York and allowed to do just one thing, I think it would have been to have taken that iconic orange ferry, gazing back across the harbour as Manhattan disappeared into the distance. He simply couldn't believe that I'd never done it. This year, on a bright, chilly March morning, I put that right.

The Upsetters - Ferry Boat

Monday Long Song

Fronted by Everton Dacres, cousin of Barrington Levy, The Majesterians released a clutch of singles between the late 1970s and mid-1980s, before disappearing from view. 'So Many Times' was recorded in 1979 at The Black Ark, though with band member Phil Mathias at the controls rather than Lee Perry. Bud Beadle, who played sessions for everyone from T.Rex to Otis Spann and Suzi Quatro to Alexander O'Neal, in addition to being a fully paid up member of Ginger Baker's Airforce, contributes flute to the tune.

The Majestarians - So Many Times

Friday Photo #27

Heavy rain on Monday morning made the prospect of a decent day-off walk unlikely, but the weather had miraculously improved by lunchtime, so I was belatedly able to get out and stretch my legs properly for the first time since being knocked sideways by Covid. I took a stroll on the common. It's one of those walks that can be cut short if necessary, or easily extended if desired, by means of a series of looping and inter-connecting footpaths, stiles and gates. The common is vast and there was nary a soul around - it was bliss. The skies cleared completely, it became very warm indeed and, as is my wont, I documented bits of the walk with my phone. Honestly, my cloud storage is chock-a-block with endless shots of big skies and footpaths disappearing off into the distance. I managed 5½ miles, followed a well deserved pint at the end. 

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Watty Burnett was essentially a session vocalist for Lee Perry in the 1970s, on standby for whenever a Scratch production required a baritone harmony in the mix. This was exactly how he came to appear so prominently on one of the very greatest albums produced at the Black Ark, 'Heart of the Congos'. Indeed, Burnett's voice became so fundamental to The Congos' sound that by the time of the album's release he was a fully fledged member of the band. In 1977, immediately prior to his adventures with The Congos, Scratch produced a solo single for Burnett, a cover of Brook Benton's 'Rainy Night in Georgia', re-titled 'Rainy Night in Portland'. Remarkably, the masterful 'Open the Gate' was originally hidden away on the flipside of that tune, only gaining a full issue in its own right in 1980. 

Watty Burnett - Open the Gate

Red Gold & Green #34 - Junior Byles

It's a long held belief among a couple of my closest friends, that I'd been unwittingly clobbered by Covid very early on - here in fact. I never saw it myself and until now I'd always put my physical and mental collapse at the very end of 2019 down to the aftershocks of the personal annus horribilis I'd just endured. Today though, as I emerge blinking and bewildered into the daylight following a 100% guaranteed, 10-day bout with the aforementioned C19, I'm forced to re-evaluate that earlier illness. My main symptoms in each case were virtually identical - a complete loss of appetite, mad, feverish dreams (to the point of doubting reality) and incredible amounts of sweating (seriously, where does all that liquid come from?) So perhaps my chums were right all along and I was indeed among the first of us to have had a brush with this dreadful virus three years ago.

Here's the great Junior Byles, produced by the legendary Lee Perry, back in the halcyon days of 1972.

Junior Byles - Fever  

Monday Long Song

Edinburgh Waverley Station, 8.45am June 17th 

The journey back from Blog-Con '22 in Edinburgh the Friday before last began comfortably enough, with temperatures hovering around the 16/17° mark as I made my way to Waverley station for the 9am southbound train. It was difficult in those moments to believe the forecast I was reading on my phone predicting highs of over 30° nearer home. Fortunately though, I did heed the warnings and packed everything possible into my case, wearing only the lightest clothes available for the trip. The first leg was relatively uneventful, save for a rowdy group necking early morning tinnies en route to York races, the views from the train across Berwick and Durham were spectacular and the air conditioning kept things manageable. By the time we rolled into Peterborough though, the aircon was starting to struggle and as I stepped from the train I discovered why - it was beginning to get very warm indeed. My expected 45 minute wait for the connection eventually extended to nearly an hour and when the Norwich bound train finally rolled in I was concerned to see that it consisted of just two carriages, which were already virtually full. The platform was pretty chock-a-block too, so you can probably imagine the chaos that ensued as we tried to board. Long story short by the time I got on it was standing room only - and when I say standing room I mean bodies squashed together standing room, for two hours, in increasingly stifling temperatures. My phone flicked between telling me that it was 32/33° outside, but who knows what it must've been on board. Oh and did I mention that the train was not blessed with aircon, nor windows that opened? 

By the time I disembarked, fell to my knees and kissed the platform at Norwich, I and everyone else in that hellhole of a train were completely soaked through with sweat and gasping for breath. I had a 15 minute uphill walk followed by a 45 minute wait for a bus, both of which were uncomfortable in the conditions, but by then I didn't care. I was just pleased to be outside, free from the combined body odours of a couple of hundred clammy sardines in a can. Our mutual chum C started her own journey south a couple of hours after me and had to travel across London on her way home. I can't begin to imagine what that must've been like. In retrospect we were incredibly lucky with our timing for the glorious bloggers meet-up though, as had it been a week later our plans may well have been scuppered altogether in light of  the RMT industrial action.

Anyway, all that whinging was just an excuse for me to dig out this beauty from the great Junior Murvin, produced by the legendary Lee' Scratch' Perry and featuring a toast from another prominent reggae name, Dillinger, who turned 68 years of age just a couple of days ago.

Junior Murvin - Roots Train

Monday Long Song

Last week was long, busy and, well, pretty darned glorious actually. Deets, as the kids say, to follow, but right now my brain is still mush from an endless, airless train journey on the hottest day of the year thus far, so let's ease into a new week with George Faith's sublime 1977 interpretation of William Bell's 'I Forgot to be Your Lover', here retitled simply, 'To Be a Lover'. The tune, released in the UK on Island's Black Swan imprint, was produced by Lee 'Scratch' Perry who makes an unexpected vocal appearance in the final 30 seconds of the mix. 'To Be a Lover' was a popular choice of cover in reggae circles during the 1970s, not least with Scratch himself who also produced versions of the song by Chenley Duffas in 1971 and George Earl in 1974. This one's the definitive reading though.

George Faith - To Be a Lover

Monday Long Song

Covid re-entered my workplace three weeks ago and has spent the time since cutting a swathe through the store. The staff have been dropping like flies. Fortunately most cases have been at the milder end of the spectrum, but several have been knocked sideways by it, suffering all kinds of unpleasantness. Those of us who've mercifully remained thus far untouched by the virus have been putting in extra hours in order to try and keep the shelves filled. Approximately 200 of us work at the gaff in total, though lately there have been times when it's felt distinctly like the Mary Celeste. There just aren't enough healthy pairs of hands to get the work done. I mention all this only to explain the recent virtual radio silence from my end. A long overdue catch up with my Aunt in London this past weekend had to be postponed too, as I worked throughout. Hopefully another week or so should see staff levels returning to something approaching normal and I can reschedule a visit for later in the month. 

Although I'd obviously much rather so many of my co-workers weren't under the weather, I can't deny that the substantial overtime is financially welcome, following my own lengthy period on the sick with shingles over Christmas. Speaking of which, while I was laid up and laid low, the last thing I felt like doing was shaving - so I didn't. And I never started again. Right about now I'm in week 20 or so with yer actual beard, I've not trimmed or tidied it at all and it's beginning to get pretty wild in the chin area. I'm not exactly sure where I go next with it to be honest, in fact I'm not even 100% certain that I like having a full beard at all (I've only ever sported the occasional goatee before now), but what I've discovered I really do like (a lot) is not having to shave. 

The Upsetters - Beard Man Shuffle

Monday Long Song

Though Lee Perry's relationship with Island Records faltered in 1978, within the walls of the Black Ark, Scratch's work rate continued at a frantic pace. Whole albums worth of material were apparently cut with legendary artists such as Junior Murvin, George Faith and Augustus Pablo, but much of the resulting music remains unreleased. Old friend Bob Marley stopped off at the studio late in the year, part-way through the Kaya world tour, to record two fabulous sides with Scratch at the controls, 'Who Colt the Game' and 'I Know a Place'. These gems were also shelved, eventually gaining a belated release in 1998.

Meanwhile Perry continued to cut and voice tunes of his own. Here's the dense, intriguing, Nyabinghi-paced 'Free Up the Prisoners', released as a 33rpm 12" single on the Conquering Lion of Judah label in 1978, before reappearing on the rarities compilation 'Soundzs From the Hot Line' in 1992. 

Lee 'Scratch' Perry - Free Up the Prisoners

Rainford Hugh Perry 1936-2021

A legend, photographed with another legend.

Perhaps it's an example of where I went wrong, business-wise, with my record shop, but one day over the Christmas period in 1997, instead of playing a current chart album like 'Butterfly' by Mariah Carey or 'Falling Into You' by Celine Dion as my competitors no doubt were, I was giving some in-store airtime to the recently released 'Tibetan Freedom Concert' triple CD. 

About a third of the way through the second disc, a customer wandered over and enquired who the singer of the current song was. I told him that it was the great Lee 'Scratch' Perry performing 'Heads of Government' and asked him what he thought of it. 'I've never heard anyone sound so totally exasperated and pissed off in my life', he said! 

My customer was right of course. Scratch screams and rants his way though an utterly compelling performance like a man possessed. It's a tune I still reach for to this day, every time some jumped up nincompoop in power says or does something dangerous, ridiculous or downright scary - so it's on pretty much constant rotation round these parts as you can imagine. 

Rest easy Upsetter.

Lee 'Scratch' Perry - Heads of Government

Big Ben Rock

Digging through some old photos recently, I came across this one, taken by Dad on one of our many Sunday outings around London in the mid-1960s. We hit a lot of well known spots on that particular day, several of which he documented with his trusty camera. Dad worked in busy hi-fi shops on both High Holborn and Oxford Street during this period, but enjoyed wandering the relatively quiet streets of the city on Sundays, when practically everything was closed. I vividly remember that, in spite of it being 20 years on from the end of World War II, a number of bomb sites still remained, scarring the landscape, apparently untouched and open to the inquisitive eyes of a little boy and his Dad. Many central areas were truly deserted, our footsteps and chatter echoing around the empty streets and pavements. Later we'd amble East to the heaving Petticoat Lane Market, where it felt by comparison that every family in London had gathered to barter, haggle and trade. 

So there I am in front of a filthy looking Big Ben (it practically glistens these days), wearing what is by far the coolest jacket I've ever owned in my life. An old Green Line coach heads out of shot - possibly a 705 on the way to Victoria. A Ford Anglia passes on my side of Westminster Bridge - a car I knew well as an Uncle drove one throughout the 1960s. An unknown lady walks into shot. When I initially rediscovered the photo, my 21st century instinct told me that she was looking at her phone, but of course on closer inspection she's holding her own camera. Perhaps, buried deep in an old shoebox somewhere in this world, there's a fading image of Big Ben being photobombed by an anonymous young lad in a rather fetching brown jacket.

The snap gives me a perfect excuse to dig out Lee 'Scratch' Perry's fantastic 'Big Ben Rock', a 7" single released for Record Store Day 2019 and featuring Boz Boorer on guitar. 

Lee 'Scratch' Perry - Big Ben Rock

Monday Long Song

Flip over the 12" of George Faith's classic 1977 reading of William Bell's 'To Be a Lover' and you'll find 'Rastaman Shuffle', a lengthy instrumental ramble through the same tune by The Upsetters - essentially it's the backing track, stripped of vocals and effects. Sometimes you need a thudding drum and bass heavy dubwise selection in your life, but at other times a melodic, chugging beauty such as this just hits the spot.

The Upsetters - Rastaman Shuffle 

A Time to Sow and a Time to Reap

Ian Brown, Van Morrison, Noel Gallagher...erm...that bloke from The Corrs - the list of pop stars who've chosen to eschew science and embrace conspiracy theories seems to grow daily. And Lee 'Scratch' Perry? Well admittedly his starting point was possibly already quite a way from what many would consider to be the beaten track, but increasingly over the past couple of years his all-caps social media posts have given us still further insights into his own particular world view. Take for example '...THERE IS NO MORE RUNNING AWAY TO JAMAICA FROM THE CHEMTRAILS! POISON EVERYWHERE!!! AND NOW THEY ARE GOING TO ROAST US AND MICROWAVE US WITH THE 5G...' or  '...CA WILDFIRES ARE MANIPULATIONS AND WEAPONIZATION OF WEATHER AND WATER! CLIMATE CHANGE IS A LIE...' 

Fortunately we have an almost bottomless treasure of sublime Scratch recordings, created in comparatively less terrifying times, to help distract us from some of his more recent, ill-advised musings.  

Lee Perry - Dreadlocks in Moonlight

Aunt Update #1

 My Aunt & I in 1963 and at her 90th birthday party last August

This was written a few days ago, but all being well, as you read these words I should be speeding my way back up the M11 towards home after spending a few days in London with my Aunt Joyce. She lives alone, celebrated her 90th birthday last year and required some minor outpatient surgery yesterday. Her daughter, my cousin, lives in New York, so I went down to transport Joyce to and from the hospital, then make sure she was as comfortable as possible before zipping back to East Anglia and to work. In four days I start a week's holiday and I'll be heading back down to London in order to check in on the patient, who, knowing her, will be a very impatient patient. By then I imagine she'll be desperate to get out of the house for a wander along the High Street, a bus ride to Romford, or a shopping trip to Chelmsford. She's had a few knocks over the years, but doesn't like to sit still for long. Hopefully though, she won't overdo it and will hang on until I arrive back in town next week, when I can whisk her off for a pub lunch at her favourite spot.

The Upsetters - Medical Operation

Red Gold & Green #27 - Kiddus I

When Frank Dowding embraced Rastafarianism in the early 1970s, he amended his name to Kiddus I, Amharic for 'blessed one', and between 1971 and 1978 was a member of  Ras Michael's Sons of Negus. In the late 1970s and early 1980s Kiddus recorded a number of solo singles, among them 'Graduation in Zion', which featured in the film 'Rockers'. During 1978 a handful of tunes were cut with Lee Perry at the controls, probably the best known of which is 'Security in the Streets'. The results of these sessions belatedly saw the light of day as 'Graduation in Zion 1978-80' in 2007, a worthy addition to any collection. After his brief period at the Black Ark, Kiddus continued to record for a number of other producers, before slipping from view at the beginning of the 1980s.  Here's my personal favourite of those precious few Scratch produced tunes.

Kiddus I - Crying Wolf

Red Gold & Green #14 - Ronnie Davis

In addition to recording as a solo artist for such legendary producers as Bunny 'Striker' Lee and Phil Pratt, Ronnie Davis also worked as part of both The Itals and The Tennors vocal groups for over 40 years. My own favourite Ronnie Davis tune, 'Laugh It Off', was recorded at The Black Ark in 1977, with the mighty Lee 'Scratch' Perry behind the desk.

Ronnie Davis - Laugh It Off 

Sadly Ronnie suffered a massive stroke on January 23rd and died in hospital two days later, he was 66. He continued to tour and record up to the very end, with his final LP, 'Iyahcoustic', being released just six months ago. Here's the video for the beautiful 'I Won't Cry'. Check out the whole LP here.

Saturday Scratch #54 - Jimmy Riley

Saturday Scratch, an occasional series that shines a light on a selection with a Lee 'Scratch' Perry connection. 

And so we bid farewell to Jimmy Riley at 61, yet another musical great lost to cancer. His career was a long one, stretching back to the mid-1960s, during which time he worked with many legendary names in Jamaican music, including Bunny Lee, Sly & Robbie, Duke Reid and a brief stint with Lee Perry. Here are a couple of tunes produced by Scratch, who also duets with Jimmy on 'Yagga Yagga'. Rest easy Mr Riley.

Saturday Scratch #53 - 80 Years Young

The mighty Lee Perry turns 80 tomorrow and to celebrate here's one of my favourite Scratch vocals. 'Jah Jah Ah Natty Dread', from 1978's 'Return of the Super Ape' LP isn't his best song, production or performance, but it always makes me smile. Musically it's oddly clunky and primitive. The band sounds as though they might have heard of reggae at some point, but have never actually played it before - this is The Upsetters though, so one assumes that they're deliberately trying to sound that way. Then there's Lee's vocal, barked like an irate market trader and barely pausing for a massive sneeze just short of the two minute mark. It's all reassuringly bonkers - and we wouldn't have him any other way. Happy birthday Scratch!

Saturday Scratch #52

It's been a while since the last edition of Saturday Scratch and this one comes bearing some bad news. A couple of days ago, part of Lee Perry's Swiss home was destroyed by fire. Thankfully no-one was hurt in the incident and, clearly distraught, Perry himself took to Facebook to explain what happened.

HALLO MY FANSSOMETHNG VERY VERY SAD HAPPENDI FORGOTT TO OUT A CANDLE AND MY WHOLE SECRET LABORATORY BURNED OUT.MY...

Posted by Lee Scratch Perry (official) on Thursday, December 3, 2015

Awful news. We wish you the best and send good vibes your way Scratch.

Saturday Scratch #51 - Residence La Revolution

Saturday Scratch, an occasional series that shines a light on a selection with a Lee 'Scratch' Perry connection. 

I've been largely absent from Internet musings over the past seven days, thanks to a long planned week of decorating. Long planned by Mrs S that is. Long dreaded by yours truly. If I don't see another paint brush for the next couple of years, you won't hear any complaints from me. Still, we've managed to tick a few little jobs off of the very long list of stuff that needs doing in and around the house, which is all to the good.

And now for something completely different. Saturday Scratch traditionally deals in wicked cuts from a bygone age, but on this occasion the selection is virtually bang up to date. In April 2015, XL Recordings boss Richard Russell, trading under the Residence La Revolution moniker, issued a 12" single, 'I Am Paint' and the tune, a stabbing aural collage, features heavily sampled chunks of Lee Perry vocals high in the mix. Each sleeve of the ridiculously limited run of 250 copies was personally hand (and foot) painted by Russell and Perry themselves in one all night session, documented in the accompanying clip. The resulting artifacts weren't distributed through traditional outlets and were only ever obtainable via a bartering system from the RLR website. Intriguing stuff. Read more here.