Lee Perry – Roast Fish & Cornbread

Lee Perry's Roast Fish and Cornbread arrived in 1978, during the late Black Ark period when Perry was working at a particularly fertile pace as reggae's great studio experimenter. What makes this album especially interesting is that, after years shaping other singers' records, it was the first LP devoted entirely to his own vocal material. That gives it a different angle from the producer-led classics around it: less a showcase for polish than a direct line into Perry's sly humour, odd imagery and social commentary.

The record moves through roots reggae and dub with the loose, uncanny atmosphere that defined so much of Perry's best work from the era. Tracks like Soul Fire, Curly Locks and the title song balance heavy rhythms with a conversational, half-sung delivery that suits him perfectly. Contemporary writers have pointed to the album's strong songwriting and its place among the key Black Ark releases, while later overviews singled it out as one of the standout Perry albums of the period.

For anyone coming to Lee "Scratch" Perry as more than a producer's name in the credits, this is a rewarding place to start: eccentric, funny and deeply rooted in Jamaican rhythm, but also personal in a way his dub sets are not. Its long life in reissues helped keep one of Perry's most distinctive self-portraits in print.

Reviews

• weren't sound-qua-sound adventures, they were strong songs smeared by a fearless, extremely stoned hand. - Pitchfork