Personnel: Lee "Scratch" Perry (vocals, percussion); Earl "Chinna" Smith (guitar); Gladson Anderson (piano); Aston "Family Man" Barrett, Boris Gardner (bass); Carlton Barrett, Mikey Boo (drums); Scully, Brad Osborne (percussion); Towerchanters (background vocals).
Recorded at Black Ark Studio, Kingston, Jamaica.
Personnel: Lee "Scratch" Perry (drums, percussion); Earl "Chinna" Smith (guitar); Gladstone Anderson (piano); Brad Osbourne (drums, percussion); Mikey Boo, Carlton Barrett (drums).
Recording information: Black Ark Studio, JA; Bob Blank Studio, USA.
This 22-track CD combines two of Lee "Scratch" Perry's earliest dub albums, SCRATCH AND COMPANY and BLACKBOARD JUNGLE DUB. Recorded in the early to mid-'70s as Perry was transforming dub into an art form, this is an essential collection of early dub. Based on such classic early '70s rhythms as Junior Byles' "Fever" and "Place Called Africa," the Upsetters' "Bucky Skank" and the Wailers' "Kaya," "Dreamland" and "Keep on Moving," the dubs are heavy and mysterious, filled with echo and bizarre sound effects. The self-mythologizing "Scratch the Dub Organizer," built around a toast from Dillinger, and "Cloak and Dagger" are particularly inspired, but every track is a killer. The innovative original vinyl pressing of BLACKBOARD JUNGLE DUB featured three different simultaneous mixes, one for each channel and a third for both, giving the album a hallucinatory feel that this excellently remastered CD retains.
