Making his first appearance in Russia, reggae legend Lee "Scratch" Perry headlines a festival in honor of Bob Marley's birthday.
In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine included Perry in its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time."
Just a few months after the Wailers gave their first-ever Russia concert, playing to a dense crowd at the smallish B2 club last November, Muscovites are set to experience another milestone in reggae appreciation when Lee "Scratch" Perry comes to Russia for the first time. This concert, though, is taking place at the much more spacious B1 Maximum club, and Perry will be accompanied by a host of Russian reggae and dub acts in a festival honoring Bob Marley's birthday.
Perry, 70, is one of the last original names in reggae still active today. Moscow reggae fans expected him to play with Mad Professor at a festival at Luzhniki Stadium in August 2003, but his absence -- widely thought to be a cancellation due to visa problems -- was actually a scam engineered by Mad Professor, Perry said.
Speaking by telephone from his home in Zurich, Switzerland, Perry said that Mad Professor had booked shows billing Perry and himself without Perry's knowledge. Perry's Swiss-born wife and manager, Mireille Perry, said that Mad Professor would arrive at these shows, say Perry had canceled and collect money allocated for him. Naturally, this led to an irreparable falling-out.
"We no work wid mad people any more," Perry quipped.
Lee "Scratch" Perry was born Rainford Hugh Perry in the rural town of St. Mary, Jamaica. In the mid-1950s, Perry started in music by running a sound system in a venue headed by the influential record producer Clement "Coxsone" Dodd and recording at Dodd's Studio One. Eventually, Perry set up his own studio, called the Black Ark, in the '70s. His production work included such trailblazing techniques as sound effects and sampling, which are commonplace now, but were pioneering then. Known for bizarre antics, a spaced-out mindset and outlandish outfits worn on stage, Perry is often compared to the late U.S. free jazz musician Sun Ra.
Perry is credited as one of the originators of dub music, which is like a stripped-down form of reggae, with minimalistic snatches of lyrics and often employing echo and reverb. He has been something of a father figure for reggae music, producing Bob Marley and the Wailers and other famous acts. When British punk started riffing on reggae, Perry even found himself recording music for the Clash. Perry has gone by a plethora of nicknames over the years, but the most enduring are "Scratch" and "The Upsetter."
Regarding these names, Perry said: "I write a song, 'Mum and Dad, Let's Do the Chicken Scratch.' When I was a boy, mother and father had a chicken, and when it wanted food, it used to scratch. If you don't scratch, you don't get the food. To get food, you also have to scratch earth to plant the seed. And de name stick on me. And 'The Upsetter' is the whole part of me dat gives life to help people up, set people up."
Perry believes in the healing power of music and often refers to himself as a healer.
"Music is a power," Perry said. "Music can do everything. There is nothing that music cannot do. I use music to heal, and I use music to help people that can be helped by music."
Seen by many as a living legend, Perry made Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Artists of All Time" list, where he was No. 100. Beastie Boys' jack-of-all-trades Adam Horovitz wrote the notes accompanying his entry in the list: "Scratch could do gorgeous, straight-ahead songs, but he would also toss away verse-chorus-bridge structure. If someone else was making a song about the city, he might add traffic noise, but Scratch would add a baby crying; he captures what's behind a song. One thing the Beastie Boys do when we are finishing tracks is make sure that there's a Lee Perry part: some weird detail that's not supposed to be there but somehow makes sense."
Despite his renown abroad, Perry doesn't seem to register in Russia outside of specialist circles.
"Perry is well known among dedicated members of Russia's Reggae-Rastafarian community, but outside of that circle, he's not known at all," music critic Artyom Troitsky said. "I've known about him for over 30 years, but in Russia, he's a purely internal Rastaman hero and was never popular here."
That could change soon, as reggae music in general is gaining popularity. Alexei Sidirov, 30, who heads up the web site Reggae.ru and organized the concert's Russian program, says that reggae is on the cusp of becoming more of a mainstream thing after years in the underground, thanks to hybrid reggae-pop acts such as 5'nizza and Gonja.
Besides Perry, other acts in Thursday's festival include Alai Oli, Chayepitiye v Kingstoneh, Dabats, Dub Division, Globalnoye Potepleniye, I-Alert Band, JahGan, Jah Noise System, Jah Soldiers, Karibasy, Muzungu, VPR i Festival Vsevo Nasveteh, Sunny Freeman and Shammah with The Rockers Band.
The Bob Marley's Birthday Reggae Festival, headlined by Lee Perry, starts Thurs. at 7 p.m. at B1 Maximum, located at 11 Ulitsa Ordzhonikidze. Metro Leninsky Prospekt. Tel. 648-6777.
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