Better The Band Perry

A quick internet search brings up some extraordinary footage of Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry producing a session at the Black Ark. Taken from the film ‘Roots, Rock, Reggae’, directed by Jeremy Marre, the sequence shows Junior Murvin collaborating with members of the Congos and the Heptones on a song improvised on the spot for the film crew. Before the vocals are recorded, the Upsetters lay down the backing track. The musical director of the session is the afro-haired bass player, Boris Gardiner; unusually, it is he who counts in the band to start each take. After a long conversation with Boris a few years back, I asked Lee about his contribution to the Black Ark sound.

Veteran guitarist, singer, and songwriter Bill Perry was one of the most inventive storytellers in the modern blues idiom, yet sadly, he passed away from a heart attack in the summer of 2007. He was 50. He burst upon the national blues touring circuit in the mid-'90s with the short-lived Point Blank/Virgin Record label. Born and raised in Chester, NY, Perry got his first guitar at age five. He quickly learned the theme from "Batman" on it while growing up in a music-filled household. Perry's grandmother played organ in the church, but Perry was attracted to his father's Jimmy Smith albums, which featured jazz/blues guitarist Kenny Burrell. During his formative years, his favorite guitarists were Jimi Hendrix, Duane Allman, and Johnny Winter. He also loved Albert Collins, B.B. King, and Freddie King.

Boston 1971: A historic early recording of Aerosmith in their rehearsal room - just the band, crew and friends captured on Joe Perry's tape recorder. This never-before-heard performance showcases the early, raw talent of this future Hall Of Fame band, one year before signing to Columbia Records, and two years before their eponymous debut, which featured many of these songs, including their enduring anthem "Dream On."

Boston 1971: A historic early recording of Aerosmith in their rehearsal room - just the band, crew and friends captured on Joe Perry's tape recorder. This never-before-heard performance showcases the early, raw talent of this future Hall Of Fame band, one year before signing to Columbia Records, and two years before their eponymous debut, which featured many of these songs, including their enduring anthem "Dream On."

It was the early 1970’s and, musically speaking, it was all going on in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco. The Summer of Love had gone up in smoke, and around Grant and Columbus Streets, the remnants were everywhere. Hippies, beatniks (the movement was spawned in North Beach), college kids, strippers and barkers going to work on Broadway…and musicians of every stripe…

Producer and fellow New Yorker guitar slinger Popa Chubby effectively captures Bill Perry's sharp licks and road hardened style on the appropriately titled Raw Deal. The sound is sufficiently unrefined, as is Perry's raspy voice, on this set of searing originals, tempered by a handful of terrific covers. Lyrically the stereotypical life of a "bluesman," told in rather clichéd detail on "Bluesman," ("no insurance, can't get sick") "Big Ass Green Van" and "Going Down to Memphis," doesn't help propel these otherwise well written and arranged songs past established boundaries of the blues-rock genre. "Terrorists," Perry's anti-Iraq war entry, fares somewhat better. Regardless, it's his relentless guitar solos that give this music its guts, and that is where Perry excels. His tone is as gritty as his voice, chewing through this material with licks that reach out and grab the listener, and then pull back into the track.