I first met Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry when he was on tour with The Mad Professor at the back end of 1984. I travelled to Manchester’s Hacienda for Scratch's show, killing two birds with one stone by interviewing new sensations The Jesus & Mary Chain in the club’s basement. I arranged to meet Scratch the following night at a Leeds University gig in order to bring him home to Clitheroe in Lancashire to stay overnight and then the following afternoon do three hours of live radio for my BBC Radio Lancashire show On The Wire. The next day he became Uncle Scratch to our young children after standing on his head and playing with them all morning.

In those days interest in Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and his productions was largely confined to the world of true reggae devotees. Arriving in the UK after his Black Ark studio in Kingston had reputedly been ‘cleansed by fire’, the ‘legend’ was beginning to look distinctly frayed around the edges; although in his late forties his appearance and demeanour gave the impression of a much older man.

The plan for the radio show was for me, a reggae fan, and Roger Eagle, a total Perry fanatic and dub disciple, to chat to Lee and play a few tunes. Before the show Roger handed him a stack of JA 7" pre-releases, all bearing the imprimatur of Scratch whether credited by script or sound. Scratch took hold of the pile, balanced a pair of NHS-style specs on his nose and began to tick the labels of those tunes he recognised with a biro, stopping to ponder those he could not remember. For Roger, each 7" in turn became a quasi-religious artefact, touched and ticked by the hand of the master.

Scratch visibly grew in confidence and he seemed to get younger through the three hours of the show as more and more of his tunes poured out of the studio speakers and phone traffic into the station got overloaded. His responses to questions, at first tentative and prosaic, began to assume the quasi-mystical stream of consciousness raps that were to become his trademark. For me the highlight of the show came as we began playing a dub to “Police & Thieves” and Scratch asked for the microphone to be opened and proceeded to improvise an inspired toast with perfect sense, timing and diction. To this day I still play this improv for the conversion of unbelievers. You can listen to the second half of that show here.

Shortly after the show I got in touch with On-U Sound’s Adrian Sherwood and encouraged him to contact Scratch. Although Scratch’s work with The Mad Professor served the reggae market well, there was no potential for a wider audience to take it on board. Two years later Scratch reappeared on On The Wire, this time in the company of Adrian, with whom he had recently cut his best post-Black Ark album, Time Boom X De Devil Dead. Adrian spent most of the show watching football on TV. Scratch brought in a video camera. Coincidentally, the show was already being filmed by local hero Brian Jackson aka Planet Jackson aka Prince Boppa aka Rasta Foureyes. At one stage Scratch was found sticking a feather into an electric socket and pouring water over it. When I got home I found a ten pence piece nailed to my wall and an evergreen tree covered in silver kitchen foil. The newly reborn Scratch was in full stride. Nevertheless, lucidity was startlingly apparent at the right time, for example when he performed another exemplary chant this time on top of his stone killer riddim for “Noah Sugar Pan”.

Some years later I had an idea to have Scratch DJ an entire edition of On The Wire solo. By this time he had met and married Mirielle and was living in Switzerland. But Mr Sherwood and I hatched a plan as Scratch was due in London to do some voicing. When they were both in the studio Adrian got in touch, I called the tunes over the phone, Adrian shouted them to Lee who was on the mic and he improvised the DJ intros. Adrian captured it on DAT, sent it on to me and I edited the links into the three hours of Scratch On The Wire.

A later surprise for Roger Eagle and me came with the release of From The Secret Laboratory, the second album collaboration with Adrian, when we heard Scratch giving us both a shout right in the middle of the tune “Seven Devils Dead”. God knows what the rest of the world made of this but clearly Scratch didn’t care.

On another occasion I was staying with Adrian in London and due to travel north but was persuaded to stay on as Lee was arriving in London for the 1996 Essential Reggae All-Dayer festival and I had not seen him for a long time. Adrian and I drove to Heathrow to pick him up but went to the wrong terminal. We rushed to the right location and while Adrian went to park the car I went looking for Scratch. He was nowhere to be seen, and the information desk would not give me any information. Then an announcement came over the tannoy: “Would Mr Adrian Sherwood please go to the information desk.” Adrian hadn’t appeared so I went to the desk claiming I was Mr Sherwood. The security man turned out to be a reggae fan and said, “Are you the Adrian Sherwood?” So I confessed, and said Adrian was on his way. He told me Mr Perry had been detained for possession. Adrian then arrived and just as we began to try to negotiate Lee’s release he appeared pushing a shopping trolley through the security area’s swing doors. Apparently he had been walking though customs/arrivals with a large cube of weed stuck on the end of his silver Dr Martens and a foot long silver flashlight full of seed, but when they realised who he was, and that today was his 60th birthday, he was released with just a warning. You can’t make up stuff like this.

Over the years I continued to be in touch off and on with Lee but by this time he had assumed the role of a worldwide music media personality; I don’t know who his agent was but he very rarely seemed to turn down a gig, whether in the studio or live. I spoke to him on the phone now and again, usually when he was in the studio with Adrian. Then in July 2017 he was booked to play the Beatherder Festival in Lancashire, along with Sherwood, Dave Rodigan and Toots & The Maytals. I took myself along only to be assigned ‘bodyguard’ duties for Lee, who introduced me to Jackie Jackson, the bassist of The Maytals, as “the best bass player in Jamaica” – this to a musician who had actual justifiable claims on that title.

At the time there was a little controversy brewing in the reggae ‘community’ as Dave Rodigan had been dubbed a ‘reggae don’, which seemed to upset some people. Not Scratch, who took great pleasure in winding up Dave at very opportunity. We ended up at the side of stage during Dave’s set only for Scratch to wander on unannounced to place two bananas on Dave’s head. Dave, the professional he is, took it in good spirits, but I think Scratch calling me on stage to say hello to the massed crowd may have been going too far.

The last time I saw Scratch was on his 83rd birthday, 20 March 2019. He was due to play a gig in Preston and was staying at the Holiday Inn. I called to see him. Scratch, alone in his room, was dressed only in his underpants. Outside it was freezing but the room temperature was in the mid-80s, with the heating on max plus extra heaters plugged in. We had a pleasant chat, shared a bottle of ginger wine and he signed his new album for me, Rainford, the final collaboration with Adrian. To illustrate Scratch’s grip on the creative process, not only had some of the songs been revoiced at a late stage but the original draft design for the album cover, a riff on apocalyptic horsemen, had a skull beneath one of three Scratches, which hadn’t pleased him and so the offending skull was removed for the final design.

I could go on but I have to stop. These are just some personal recollections of one of the greatest producers of the 20th century, one who perversely seems to be known to most via his flamboyant performances over the last 40 years rather than the legacy he left from his time at the Black Ark and during his period of development when The Upsetters matched even The Meters for their energy and invention.