Scorcher, 1980
African Princess
Face In De Place
Roach In De Corner
Nineteen Eighty Style
Paulette You A Fret
Owner Fe The Donkey
Frog-In-A-Water
Flora Lee
Flat Foot Hustling
"The man Errol Scorcher is one of our most Dedicated and Promising young Artists emerge through this Century from off both Foreign and Local Scene the name as become a favourite with the music public ever since his biggest Hit Roach in a De Corner.
Many will be asking for more of this Hit from Scorcher not only has he shown a capability to make Hit after Hits but to let one aware of the versitility seldom you will find comes out of one individual in such sensational manner of relax composement and above all his Dee Jay music are what mix with the reality concentrated on some of what programming on every day life of people around and about.
Errol will be always looking to go forward and convince his critics that he is amongst the best talent out of the West, that should keep you on your feet and soul dancing while you enjoy the daylight of the Errol Scorcher showcase album..... Waddada"
- Jeolfrey Allen
While Errol Scorcher’s debut record Rastafire with The Revolutionaries was a pretty ‘vanilla’ affair as far as late-70’s deejaying goes, Roach In A De Corner – the first record on the Scorcher label – is the pinnacle of bizarre in dancehall. Here Errol cares little for consistency and will freely whisper, let his voice crack (this tic was present in Rastafire to be fair!), go off beat and abruptly switch up his delivery of the same line for no good reason. The riddims follow suit with little bits of dubbing coming in and out at bizarre times, the vocals being suddenly cut off at the end of tunes and so on – but the results still come out much more compelling than Rastafire. If nothing else, it’s unforgettable.
The album revolves around the monstrous Roach In De Corner, clocking in at four minutes of vocal and five minutes of dub on the Real Rock riddim. Deservedly it is Errol’s biggest tune by far and obviously a favourite of mine. This blog’s title “Bim Kill Him” comes from this tune and is Errol’s way of articulating his favored practice of killing roaches with Baygon bug spray, but not Real Kill because it doesn’t work. Theming my website after its lyrics is the least I can do in tribute for this tune. D. (I assume Dennis) Lawrence made his tribute as well for the back cover of this record, which you can now sight for yourself:
Dennis Lawrence a.k.a. Ras Mabuba has no other artwork credits on Discogs, but he did vocals for a few roots tunes, all of which seem to be rarities now.
But back to Errol Scorcher. Besides his bizarre vocals, Errol ranks among the most nonsensical lyricists in the reggae scene, and even when the words are comprehensible, the meaning often isn’t. As an example of one of the most scorching (most ‘Errol’) styles you can hear in this record, Owner Fe The Donkey opens like this:
“Anywhere me go me say me hear dem a chat, E E E, man dem must a owner fe the donkey. Go deh!!”
The logic follows that a donkey owner would say E E E to call their donkey. This is followed with:
“When me go a school me say the teacher say, A B C, yah, D E F, go deh, G H I, yah, J K L, bung diddla, M N O, me say a P Q R, me say S and a T and a U, bung diddla, a V and a W and a Z, go deh”.
Leave it to Errol Scorcher to dedicate half a minute in his reggae song to reciting the alphabet and still get it wrong. Anyway I feel like the connection here is that the donkey owner says E E E, and the teacher says the alphabet which also has the letter E in it. It is delightful to sit through lines of lyrics pondering these things and wondering how much you are actually following for a couple minutes only for your train of thought to be interrupted by bung bung bung bung bung bung diddla bung, bung diddla widdla widdla widdla dung dung widdla bung which increases in intensity towards the end of the tune. After Owner Fe The Donkey we get the Frog-In-A-Water, which is one of those ‘sequel’ tunes where the artist rides their own wave of success, but it isn’t lame or horrible so that is a big win. The dub artist* adds the sound of bubbles being blown through water to represent the frog, and scratches a sheet of paper back and forth on his desk to represent the roach, because as Errol says, “boy, you a frog in a de water, and you a cockroach in the corner”. Later it’s clarified that “the other time, you a cockroach in the corner”. If you want to know why, you can dig and scratch at the scraps of nonsense lyrics inbetween for yourself.
Flora Lee shows admirable commitment to style at the expense of lyrical sensibilities. It’s a nice storytelling tune about taking a girl to the zoo and the wharf to show her the animals and boats, but see how the words get arranged in order to fit them into the cadence he wanted:
“Me say me take her dung a wharf and me show her the ship
Show her the ship and me show her the boat
Tell me which boat Scorcher show Flora Lee (ca-)
Tell me which boat Scorcher show Miss Lou
Canoe”
The backup vocalist (Toyan?) jumping the gun and starting to say ‘canoe’ a line early before cutting himself off is another cherry on top, perfectly in character for this album. At the end he belts ‘looou’ a little too sharp before being cut off to make way for Flat Foot Hustling, the dub cut of African Princess and Hustling by Tony Tuff, also produced by Scorcher.
Errol Scorcher the Godfather, and some call him Mayor.
*Either Scorcher himself or “Tippa”, both are credited with production
Bim count: 19
My picks: Roach In De Corner, Nineteen Eighty Style, Owner Fe The Donkey, Flora Lee
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