Category: Rock

With THE ISLANDER: My Life in Music and Beyond (Simon & Schuster/Gallery Books), Island Records’ founder Chris Blackwell secures his status as one of the most insightful, ballsy and successful label owners in the history of the rough-and-tumble record business. The swashbuckling, swing-for-the-fences Blackwell’s M.O. was finding and patiently nurturing musicians of true originality, artists who were often overlooked by larger labels due to their distinctive edge.  This was the very thing that Island tirelessly exploited to turn them into stars, ones who both delighted critics and sometimes moved tens of millions of albums.  Bob Marley, U2, Steve Winwood, Traffic, Cat Stevens, The B-52s, Nick Drake, Free, King Crimson, Roxy Music, Tom Waits, Robert Palmer, The Tom Tom Club, Brian Eno, Sparks, Grace Jones and The Cranberries are just the tip of Blackwell and Island’s roster of finds.  The man would not only go on to create an indelible mark over six decades of modern music but extend it into the worlds of films, technology and high-end hospitality.

Blackwell’s story begins and ends in Jamaica. He is the son of rich Brits who came to the island shortly after his birth, the fortunate heirs to a 300-year-old food concern, Crosse & Blackwell. His wealthy family was at the center of a star-studded expat community in Jamaica at that time. It included Hollywood actor Errol Flynn, songwriter Noel Coward and, most notably, Ian Fleming.  Fleming wrote all of his James Bond novels at his famed home GoldenEye, one that Blackwell now owns and runs as an exclusive resort. His mother Blanche was a muse for Fleming and the basis for two of his most memorable Bond paramours, Pussy Galore and Honeychilde Ryder. Blackwell would head back to England for school in his teens. It was there that he would become fascinated with the burgeoning popular music scene.

It is in Jamaica, however, where Blackwell begins to enter the music business. His first job is as a “selector” who would supply R&B records he bought in his international travels to Britain and New York City to the island’s far-flung jukeboxes and mobile “Sound System” djs like the legendary Coxsone Dodd and Tom the Great Sebastian. After a few misses in record production in Jamaica, Blackwell’s first big success come with the signing of 15-year-old singer Millie Smalls.  Blackwell would become her guardian and take her to England where she would score a huge international hit with the ska-flavored “My Boy Lollipop.” 

Blackwell’s long foray into rock would begin with the discovery of teenage Steve Winwood and the string of hits with his first band, The Spencer Davis Group. Island would then go on to champion Winwood’s next venture, Traffic.  It was Blackwell who came up with the idea of getting them away from the city and up to a country cottage to create the music for their first album.  Bands have been doing the “going to the country” thing ever since, thanks to Blackwell and Traffic.

While he didn’t sign them, it is Blackwell,  through his then number-two Guy Stevens, who we have to thank for connecting aspiring poet/lyricist named Keith Reid with composer/singer/pianist Gary Brooker. Together, they who would go on to create Procol Harum and “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” perhaps the greatest orch-pop anthem of the Summer of Love. A great section of Blackwell’s memoir deals with the some now immortal names in British folk – Nick Drake, Fairport Convention and John Martyn – artists  Blackwell inherited when he purchased Joe Boyd’s Witchseason label.  His description of the powder keg when the alcohol-loving Martyn and eccentric Jamaica dub master/producer Lee “Scratch” Perry worked together are worth the price of the book alone. So, too, are the stories from his long-running relationship with Cat Stevens. It was Blackwell who helped turn this failing lightweight pop idol into one of the most influential singer-songwriters of the ‘70s. He also dealt with the artist’s unexpected retirement and named change spurred by his new found devotion to Islam in the early ‘80s.

Through the two recording studios he founded, London’s Basing Street Studios and Compass Point in Nassau, Chris Blackwell was a party to a huge cache of hits that didn’t, unfortunately, come out on his label, from the Talking Heads “Remain in Light” to AC/DC’s “Back In Black.”

Of course, the heart of this book is the story of his two most successful artists, Bob Marley and U2. 

Blackwell would go on to give the former the cash to make his first album with a simple handshake. The label owner was with Marley every step of the way on his long climb to stardom, something which was only cemented with the release of Marley’s 1975 live album. Blackwell also dishes the sad facts of Marley’s death and his belief that the reggae great could’ve lived if he promptly dealt with his cancer at diagnosis.  And, naturally, one of the true joys of his life is witnessing the impact Marley continues to have as a symbol of freedom to oppressed people throughout the world. 

And just like The Beatles, U2 were pretty much turned down by every record company when Blackwell was finally strongarmed by his staff to sign the Irish rockers.  As with many of his artists, Blackwell’s hands-off approach in the studio helped the band find and refine its voice, until it became the biggest in the world with the release of its 25-million selling 1987 album, “The Joshua Tree.” 

Some of the best parts of the book are about the less-known scenes, such as his partnership with NYC-based ZE Records. This was the label behind early ‘80s “No Wave” bands/artists like James White and the Blacks, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Suicide, Mars, Was (Not Was) and Kid Creole and the Coconuts.  With his label Mango Records, Blackwell was perhaps the most important catalyst for the global spread of reggae by artists like Burning Spear, Max Romeo, Sly & Robbie and Lee Perry.  And with the Bill Laswell-led Axiom Records, Blackwell played a part in unleashing some of the most adventurous and uncompromising music coming out of Greenpoint Studios in Brooklyn. Axiom was the label behind  albums by Praxis and Material and the noise guitar great Sonny Sharrock’s classic, “Ask The Ages.”

Blackwell’s memoir also provides the details on his move into films with the release of the reggae classic, The Harder They Come and his founding of Palm Pictures, which gave the world acclaimed films like The Basketball Diaries and Sex and Lucia. Also detailed is his early move into technology with the ultimately failed webcasting service, Sputnik 7.  In 1989, Blackwell would sell his stake in Island to Polygram and leave the record business for good in 1997.  He would go on to make savvy investments in Miami Beach real estate, which he would have to sell in one of his inevitable cash crunches (due to Sputnik 7’s flop).  He would ultimately settle on running a collection of distinctive hotels and villas in Jamaica which he continues to operate today under the banner Island Outpost.  Fun fact: Sting wrote “Every Breath You Take” while staying at Blackwell’s GoldenEye, the same place Apple founder Steve Jobs celebrated his 29^th birthday.

Unlike some record company founder bios, Chris Blackwell humbly shares the credit for much of his success with his associates, chief among them producer and A&R man Guy Stevens.  Blackwell also gives unvarnished views of his failures, like Sputnik 7, some promising singings that went south and his missed singing opportunities like Procol Harum and much of the early British punk scene.  

For all the amazing achievements packed into its pages, Blackwell’s memoir is eminently readable, a tale imparted with the casual flow of a first-rate raconteur.  It’s an absorbing recounting of one of the most remarkable lives, and longest winning streaks, in the fickle and constantly evolving world of popular music.