Heart of the Studio

LEE "SCRATCH" PERRY was a natural mystic from rural Jamaica who quite possibly invented reggae; almost certainly invented dub; most definitely produced some of his country's most enduring singles and albums for the likes of the WAILERS, the CONGOS, MAX ROMEO and the HEPTONES; literally turned studio mixing boards into instruments (which he played like a grandmaster on acid); without any doubt provided some of the basic materials that others used to invent hip-hop and remake electronic music; is the subject of a 300-page book that does little more than list everything he recorded through the early 2000s; lived and worked for another couple decades after that; and, though this can't be scientifically proved, might have invented thunder and echo. Or maybe he just improved on nature's original designs for those last two phenomena. Is the thunder from a storm any match for the impossibly deep bass of Perry's classic dub sides? Has anyone in the world's largest canyon or deepest cave ever heard an echo like Perry achieved with his collection of reverbs? He was a madman, some people said. He did not disagree. "Sometimes," he said, "it takes a madman."

What we lost Sunday with the death, at age 85, of Lee Perry, aka Scratch, aka the Upsetter, is one of the 20th century's great explorers, shapers and innovators of sound, and one of the founders, therefore, of modern popular music. (No, DIDDY, you did not invent the remix.) He had a shamanic presence (he was prone to answer questions about his process by saying things like "I am a mystic. I am a fish. I am a chicken") that belied his clear vision and (mostly) unwavering work ethic. He was earth and fire and love and revolution and everyone from BOB MARLEY to PAUL MCCARTNEY to the CLASH to the BEASTIE BOYS to MAD PROFESSOR wanted to, and did, work with him. He wasn't stable in the conventional sense of stable. Later in life, long after he had burned down his legendary BLACK ARK studio to drive away evil spirits and re-started his career from scratch, he lived in Switzerland, where, according to his wife, he sometimes rebelled against her desire for a clean house by defecating in champagne glasses and leaving them around said house. "I guess," MIREILLE RUEGG PERRY told Rolling Stone in 2010, "sometimes he just takes his belief in the natural too far." He took everything too far, really. It was how he lived, and it was a piece of his genius.

He leaves behind "the best roots reggae album ever recorded," HEART OF THE CONGOS, and 299 other pages of often massive achievements in a discography you could spend the rest of your lifetime trying to absorb. RIP.

Rest in Peace Also

Afghan folk singer FAWAD ANDARABI, whose family said he was murdered by the Taliban on Friday... Iron Butterfly drummer RON BUSHY, who played the classic three-minute drum solo in the middle of "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" and was the only member of the band to play on all of its studio albums... '90s R&B singer SAM SALTER... British DJ and remixer ALAN COULTHARD... Renowned Italian record collector (and ice cream maker) CARLO PISTACCHI.