THERE were not many people who Lee “Scratch” Perry warmed to in his 85 years. In a professional sense, that is.

In American writer David Katz, however, the eccentric music producer found a kindred spirit. They had a 34-year association that resulted in Katz’s book, People Funny Boy: The Genius of Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry.

Considered the definitive Perry biography, it was released in 2000 — 11 years after the two men first met in Katz’s hometown of San Francisco. It was revised in 2006.

An updated edition was scheduled to be released next March but there is likely to be a change in plans following Perry’s death on August 29 in his native Hanover.

“The book was last revised in 2006 so it was really overdue for an update to cover the last 15-20 years properly. And, I had conducted another 20 plus interviews with Perry and hung out a lot with him in different locations, so I had a lot of new information that needed considering. Also, I became aware of some errors in the earlier editions, some of which were significant,” Katz told the Jamaica Observer on Monday.

He added that, “I had spent a lot more time in Jamaica, so [I] had [a] different understanding of various aspects of Jamaican history and culture which were maybe not dealt with so well in the earlier editions either. Obviously, I will need to consider the ending of the book since Perry’s passing.”

‘People Funny Boy’ covers every facet of Perry’s colourful life — from his days in rural Jamaica to his early years in the music business as a jack of all trades with producers like Clement “Coxson” Dodd, and his emergence as an unconventional producer with artistes like The Wailers, Max Romeo, Junior Byles and The Congos.

Katz, a long-time resident of the United Kingdom, said his initial meeting with Perry took place at a club called Dingwall’s. He had written an article about his album, Battle of Armagideon (Millionaire Liquidator) for a magazine called Wiring Department.

He remembers Perry taking the magazine and contacting him later that day to set up a subsequent meeting at a studio where he was recording.

“He put me through some rituals and declared me the ghost writer who was apparently to help him get his autobiography together. So that began the long journey that resulted in my writing of People Funny Boy: The Genius of Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, which took about 12 years to complete and get into print. You could say it was 10 years of research and countless rejection letters from publishers until I finally found one that was willing to take the project on and provide a small advance which enabled me to get to Jamaica, [plus] maybe two years of writing and another six months of rewrites, or something like that,” Katz explained.

People Funny Boy: The Genius of Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, is Katz’s first book. His second, the expansive Solid Foundation: An Oral History of Jamaican Music, was released in 2003.

Despite his idiosyncrasies, Katz was amazed at Perry’s boundless musical abilities.

“Mr Perry was integral to the creation of dub and the development of dub as an art form. What he achieved with a basic Teac four-track at his home studio — with technically limited equipment, almost no budgets, no formal training and very little formal education — is staggering,” he said. “We now have limitless tracks using computer technology but no one comes close to what Perry achieved in the mid to late ’70s.”