Lee 'Scratch' Perry: The Wonderman Years C/D

That's the more recent set I was talking about a couple of posts ago. I was in Dublin very shortly, didn't get a chance to hit the record shops I wanted to, did get into the smaller Tower and they had that and very little of what i had actually been looking for. It is pretty great.

I'm now seeinmg that Dub Triptych and Dubstrumentals are only a couple of years after the first wave of Sanctuary Trojan sets . I think I came across them a bit later. I've definitely got a mental interval. It may have taken me a while to start picking titles up.
I think my introductions were the Grand Royal article on Perry which I though had me looking for several titles and then gettimg Arkology though I may have had some bits of his work dotted around elsewhere beforehand.
I have a biography of him called People Funny Boy somewhere too.

Right, wasn't sure that was the one you meant.

There just seems to be an infinite amount of spectacular stuff from Jamaican around this time, like you pick up a new 2CD set, you've been listening to this stuff for more than 30 years and you've never heard 30 of the 50 tracks... and they're all really good. The Sanctuary sets get hard to find but don't worry there are a ton of Doctor Bird CD sets instead (with mostly different stuff). It's amazing.

(Not Perry but I've been enjoying the recentish reissue of "Darling Ooh" by Errol Dunkley, which I'd managed not to get hold of in previous reissues.)

I remember around age 14 hearing Wailers tunes like "Duppy Conqueror" and "Small Axe" and just being floored. It wasn't until later, maybe college, that I learned that those were Lee Perry joints. And I think then, and ever since then, I've always kind of looked around in the Lee Perry catalogue looking to scratch that itch, as it were. And Lord knows I've found some really cool stuff, even if it hasn't been that exactly. But it wasn't until I heard that Reggae Boys track that I thought, well, maybe there actually is more of that '69-'70 sound / arrangement with the beautiful vocals and the sound that's just ... I don't know, pulsating with life? It sounds like the board and the tape can barely contain the music and there's just this kind of throbbing bounce that has all these cool interesting sounds popping in from all over. But I feel weird, like ungrateful or something. Because when I listen to the Upsetter / Wailers tracks, I'm pretty sure it's all I will ever need in life.

― budo jeru, Thursday, August 31, 2023 10:27 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

The first versions of "Kaya," "Natural Mystic," and "Small Axe" were all from random compilations and I guess all from Perry-produced demos? Album versions all sound fine, but hearing them immediately made me scramble for the bootleg versions. Especially funny since the unifying quality is that the production sounds "worse" on all of them, but all sound better and infinitely looser.

I'm not sure if Perry's 4-track technique took some inspiration from Phil Spector's work with The Crystals and The Ronettes, but the end result – extremely flat but maximally full – always sounded similar to me. Always figured there was something about how the vocals are recorded / arranged that was clicking with me.

I first encountered those tunes on this 3xCD box set, which you can get on Discogs for around $3.

https://i.discogs.com/MXx2e3qggzDh6_44Zw25AxvjQxSZ_iFl0UUqaFb-3gA/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:530/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTM0MTc3/MjctMTMyOTYzNzU1/My5qcGVn.jpeg

The first version of "Kaya" is on SOUL REVOLUTION PART II, right? I don't think they are demos, unless you're referring to something I haven't heard.

sorry, meant to link it: https://www.discogs.com/release/3417727-Bob-Marley-The-Best-Of-Bob-Marley

any of the LPs around that time: Return of Django, The Upsetter, Scratch the Upsetter Again, Eastwood Rides Again: all gold IMO

Thanks, Tim. I'm going to check these out.

Pleasure. Thinking about the "beautiful voices" part of your question: here are three not-Perry (roughly) single-artist LPs that I love unreservedly, one song from each, you may of course be all over these already.

1. The Kingstonians: Sufferer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19LZOyxIJ6w

2. Johnny Osbourne: Come Back Darling: (the 2CD version of this is particularly good if you can find a copy)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeIqbNRLJos

3. The Inspirations: Reggae Fever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Mt95sOD0hA

A general reggae question. Or musing?

Normally I'm not interested in remixes or new versions of songs, but with reggae I have a seemingly endless enjoyment of this. Sometimes the versions aren't even that different, but on something like Arkology or Junior Murvin's Police & Thieves deluxe version, it will have loads of versions one after the other and it's just the best.

Or the complete Upsetters box by the Wailers and Perry where there will be the regular track, an instrumental version, a dub version, an alternate version, etc, and it winds up sounding like a very long mix that goes on forever.

But with electronic music, or just about anything else, No, No, No. I'm not sure why this is but it definitely feels like something that is baked into reggae. I remember reading reviews of reggae albums on Allmusic and sometimes they would write negatively about albums that were in the showcase format, where the dub version immediately follows the regular version. Before I had much experience with reggae that sounded horrible to me, but Allmusic was wrong. This is a great way to present the music but I don't know that it would work that well with any other kind of music.

What about reggae makes this work so well?

Tbf it's always difficult to tell if they're demos, alternate takes, releases from previous albums, etc.

The Soul Revolution Part II version of "Kaya" is *so close* to the one I heard first. It's essentially the same but lmao the production on the one I like is slightly shittier. Heh can't even find a version of it on YouTube, and the only place I can find it on Apple Music is on a Gregory Isaacs comp called Rasta Friends, this track. Very, very similar, but the difference esp. in the vocals is noticeable if you listen the versions back-to-back.

I'm sure the comps I found all these random tracks on were compiled from more official compilations, but the ones I bought were bootleg CDs from street vendors in Guadalajara MX and Quito in the late 90s (with the earliest stuff popping up on 1st wave ska comps) that were compiled pretty whimsically.

Thanks for that 3XCD link though – I bet a lot of those are similar/same, though. Either way, took me a while to figure out that the Wailers sound I loved was almost exclusively the stuff Perry worked on. This is the sound:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeQy4CE9bto

I think that's the version recorded in 1975 at Black Ark and sounds 100X better than the rerecorded version a few years later.

(those are all great recs btw, Tim)

Is it possible the first version you heard was the same but badly bootlegged mastered?

(I am not paid up to listen to the version you posted, sorry if my question is dumb)

Yes that's almost certainly it, thank you. The vocal take does sound the same, and I think the track length difference is just a slightly longer outro on Soul Rev.

Great tunes, Tim! Love 'em.

Here's another one that scratches the itch, both the jerky sound and beautiful vocals. One of my favorite songs for sure

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ckb4N_VwMyQ

drum machine on the OG "Natural Mystic" sounds awesome; it's the same version on the 3xCD i linked for sure