ISLAND
RECORDS


In its early years, the Island Records story was synonymous with one name - Chris Blackwell. From founding the label in Jamaica in 1959 with capital of just £1000 until he sold Island almost 30 years later for undisclosed millions, Blackwell built the most diverse and enviable back catalogue of any independent label in history. From Island's early Jamaican roots in ska and rock-steady, through the label's expansion to become the cutting edge of progressive rock in the late 60s, and then on to the signing of such international superstars as Bob Marley and U2, Blackwell brought to Island a unique vision and passion which still informs the label's approach to this day. Blackwell came from a wealthy Jamaican family and when he issued his first records in 1959, he took his nascent label's name from Alec Waugh's novel Island In The Sun. The pattern was set early when he enjoyed almost immediate success with Boogie In My Bones by ska singer Laurel Aitken, which stayed at number 1 on the Jamaican charts for 11 weeks.The first album released on Island came a year later with the release of Lance Heywood at The Half Moon Hotel, featuring the jazz pianist of the same name, and top Jamaican guitarist Ernest Ranglin. The catalogue number was CB 22; Blackwell was 22 years old at the time. "When I first recorded Laurel Aitken and those people, I never thought it would be the start of a popular record company," he recalls. "I was just recording the music because I wanted to do it and I loved it. Jamaica is a very small place, and I was only thinking in very simple terms at that stage". But his ambitions were growing rapidly and in early 1962 Blackwell transferred his burgeoning Island operation to London with the help of a 5,000 dollar loan and a town house rented from the Church of England Commissioners. It was a move which he hoped would provide an international platform for Jamaican music. "I went to the UK rather than the US because there was a huge Jamaican population. I bought a list of the 20 major record stores catering for black music from Carlo Kramer at Esquire Records and started from there," he says.According to legend, Blackwell used to hawk boxes of his imported Jamaican discs around UK record shops in a Mini Cooper - and from the back seat of that tiny vehicle grew one of the world's most influential recording labels. "That's absolutely true," he chuckles. "In those days you could get around pretty fast in a Mini ." Initially Island marketed its records at the sound systems which played the all-night blues parties in Brixton, Notting Hill and the other heartlands of the British Afro-Caribbean community. But early ska recordings on the label by the likes of Derrick Morgan and Jimmy Cliff swiftly found their way onto the dance floors of swinging London's trendiest clubs, such as the Flamingo in Wardour Street and the Roaring Twenties in Carnaby Street.In the clubs, the new Jamaican sounds were played alongside imported American r'n'b and Blackwell as ever was swift to see the crossover pie Gaye.He asked the teenage Jamaican singer Millie Small to cover the song in early 1964 with a band directed by his old Jamaican friend Ernest Ranglin and knew he had a big hit on his hands. Yet he feared Island as a label was too small to cope with the demand and licensed the track to Fontana. He was rewarded with the first international Jamaican hit, selling seven million copies world-wide and reaching number two in both the US and UK charts.Always a maverick, Blackwell explains his unconventional methods of the time. "I started in a very dodgy way," he admits. "I used to go to New York and buy r'n'b records and then sell them on to the sound systems in Jamaica. I'd scratch off the labels so nobody knew what they were and so I could charge any price I liked for them. But I kept tapes of everything I imported and one of the tracks was My Boy Lollipop. I was playing the tape one night and when I heard the song again, I knew it was perfect for Millie."Around the same time, Blackwell teamed up with Guy Stevens to start an Island subsidiary called Sue, which he used to introduce a British audience to the very best of imported American r'n'b, such as Robert Parker's Barefootin' and Bob & Earl's Harlem Shuffle. The impact of both his Jamaican and American records was huge. "There was a feature in the music weekly Disc in the mid-60s in which each of the four Beatles was asked to name their four favourite records," he recalls. "Out of 16 records, seven of them were on Island or Sue."In early 1967 Blackwell took the decision to diversify into the white rock market. He began by signing Art (shortly to become Spooky Tooth) and Traffic, led by Stevie Winwood, who he had discovered a couple of years earlier, singing with the Spencer Davis Group. He had signed the SDG on the strength of Winwood's remarkable voice, but felt that Island was not yet strong enough to release their records. Once again, he licensed the group's singles to Fontana, including such hits as Gimme Some Lovin and Keep On Runnin', which displaced The Beatles' Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out from the top of the UK charts in January 1966. "I'd seen independent labels die because they had a hit," he explains. "They'd run up a huge bill manufacturing the records and then they would have difficulty getting paid on time by retailers and they'd go bankrupt. I wasn't going to risk that with Island."But encouraged by the success of the Spencer Davis Group and intrigued by the emerging counter-culture around groups such as the Pink Floyd and Soft Machine, it wasn't long before Blackwell's instincts told him the time was right to place Island at the forefront of the emerging 'progressive' rock or 'underground' scene. "It was the end of an era and the beginning of a new one," he recalls. "Up until then I had spent 75 per cent of my time on Jamaican music and only 25 per cent on pop and rock. I realised it was time to reverse that." When Winwood left the Spencer Davis Group, with Blackwell's encouragement he formed Traffic, who enjoyed instant success in both the singles and albums markets. Soon Island boasted what today reads like a who's who of British rock from the period, including King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Free, among others. At the same time, Blackwell developed a strong reputation for nurturing the label's talent and his hands-on, highly personal approach fostered the idea of Island as a musical family as much as a conventional record company.By the beginning of the 1970s, Island was the undisputed brand leader in British 'prog rock'. But the label was also constantly on the lookout for new sounds and in 1972 Roxy Music joined the Island stable, helping to usher in the glam rock era. Solo recordings by Eno and Bryan Ferry and the signing of former Velvet Underground man John Cale also did well for the label.Yet it was a return to Blackwell's love of Jamaican music that was to give Island its greatest coup, when in 1973 the label signed Bob Marley and the Wailers. Of course, Marley was a uniquely talented artist. But the way he blossomed was also a tribute to the vision of Blackwell, who devised a plan to exploit the singer's rebel image and to turn him into "a black rock star as big as Jimi Hendrix."As Blackwell recalls, many warned him against the signing, warning that Marley's ghetto attitude was trouble. Undeterred, in late 1972 he gave the group £4,000 to record Catch A Fire, their first album for Island. It was an investment that ultimately was to be repaid a million times over. "Everybody said I was crazy, that these were bad, unreliable guys who would rip me off," Blackwell remembers. "But I backed a hunch that it wouldn't quite turn out like that." Marley went on to become the Third World's first international superstar and Island's biggest-selling act.With Marley turning the once minority sport of reggae into a multi-million pound business, Island was ideally placed via Blackwell's Jamaican connections to become the leading player, just as it had done only a few years earlier with prog rock. By the late 1970s the label had an unrivalled roster of top reggae stars, which included the likes of Toots and the Maytals, Aswad, Steel Pulse and many others.In July 1989, Blackwell sold Island Records and Island Music to PolyGram UK Group for £272 million. From this point on, Island was no longer an independent company.