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LEE PERRY PROFILE Born: 28 March 1936 Hanover, Jamaica.
From the beginning Lee Perry has courted radicalism and notoriety for the wacky, troubleshooting styles that have left impressionable marks on the whole of his collectionto date. Social & personal justice or injustice as the case may be, have been the kinds of issues he wrote for Delroy Wilson with works such as Trial & Crosses, Help The Weak, Give Me Justice, Chicken Scratch (which is incidentally where he got his title from), Doctor Dick (with The Soulettes on backing vocals), Madhead (1963-66) and Prince In The Pack was aimed as an attack on his former employer Dodd and his rival Prince Buster - although here, there is porported to have been a mutual respect shared between the two artists.
1966 heralds the beginning of the end of the Coxsone - Lee association. This time Perry is set on expanding his credentials to a wider variety of associates including producers like JJ Johnson, Clancy Eccles and in 1968 he teams up with Joe Gibbs for whom he wrote songs and produced artists like Errol Dunkey and The Pioneers. During the reign with Gibbs he releases an acidic track with scorched out lyrics aimed at Coxsone entitled The Upsetter. Whether the title refers to Coxsone or to himself is uncertain, perhaps the title has multifarious implications, what is certain is that Perry has earned himself the reputation and knickname The Upsetter ever since. Perry continues to unleash built up venom and frustration out on to his lyrics when in 1968 People Funny Boy is released for public appraisal. This time Perry directs his anger at Gibbs for allegedly failing to recognise the role he played in his success.
Around about this time Perry launches his own record
label called The Upsetter in Jamaica teaming up once again with Clancy
Eccles. It gains immediate success with David Isaac's Place In The Sun
and The Untouchables' Tighten Up. These are followed up in 1969 by Val
Bennet's Spaghetti Western title Return Of The Django which becomes
a UK hit with a place held at number 5 for 3 consecutive weeks. At this
stage Perry is also busy producing a number of records for The Wailers,
including Small Axe, Duppy Conqueror and Soul Rebel and extends his
craftsmanship to a series of instrumentals, these include Night Doctor,
Live Injection, Cold Sweat, Django Shoots First, and Drugs & Poison.
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