Listed below are excerpts from “Island Information Founder Chris Blackwell Talks Bob Marley, U2, and His Fascinating Memoir, ‘The Islander,’” by Jem Aswad (Selection).
Whereas he hasn’t been lively within the music world for a few many years, Chris Blackwell, founding father of Island Information, is indisputably one of many best file executives in historical past. The record of artists that the corporate spawned beneath his watch is astonishing and arguably with out peer for an organization of its dimension: U2, Bob Marley, Nick Drake, King Crimson, Roxy Music, Site visitors, Free, Cat Stevens, Grace Jones, Robert Palmer, Brian Eno, Steve Winwood, Jethro Tull, Fairport Conference, Toots & the Maytalls, the Cranberries, Marianne Faithfull, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, King Sunny Ade, Eric B. & Rakim, Jimmy Cliff’s “The More durable They Come” and so many others. He co-founded the corporate in his native Jamaica in 1959, relocated to London and inside 5 years had launched the primary world reggae hit, Millie Smalls’ “My Boy Lollipop.” A few years later he pivoted into rock, and, nicely, you may see above how that went.
In case you’re even a minor fan of music books, cease studying this text and purchase his autobiography, “The Islander,” launched this week, which was written (fantastically) with Paul Morley — severely, it’s on the extent of Elton John’s “Me” and Patti Smith’s “Simply Youngsters” for all-time nice music memoirs.
Inducted into the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame in 2001, Blackwell bought Island in 1989 and moved on to different endeavors: inns, actual property, resorts (he remodeled Ian Fleming’s Jamaican property Goldeneye right into a world-class resort), one other file firm (Palm Photos within the early ‘00s), rum, and his Island Movies launched “Kiss of the Spider Girl” and “Cease Making Sense,” amongst others.
Born right into a rich household and raised in Jamaica, Blackwell was educated in England and there attained an upper-class accent that has served him nicely. He returned to Jamaica, turned obsessive about music and started working as a “selecter” (D.J.) programming jukeboxes throughout the island. He began producing and releasing information — among the many first by Jamaican artists — and shortly launched Island. By means of his household, he developed shut friendships as a younger man with legendary actor Errol Flynn and “James Bond” writer Ian Fleming, and even turned shut with Miles Davis throughout journeys to New York. This confidence and early expertise with high-flyers little question performed a big position within the profession and life that adopted.
Blackwell’s ebook is so well-written (for which he credit Morley — “I didn’t write a paragraph”) and full of celebrity cameos that the glamour might overshadow the eager musical perception he shows virtually casually all through — he speaks of the affect of Fat Domino on reggae, the significance of the swinging jazz drums in Procol Harum’s 1967 smash “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” the truth that bass is successfully the lead instrument in reggae music, and numerous different insights that can impress even deepest of music geeks. He additionally pays tribute to a lot of music’s lesser-sung heroes, such because the late Man Stevens — a wild A&R man who coined the phrase “A Whiter Shade of Pale” and produced Mott the Hoople and the Conflict however by no means actually received his due — Joe Boyd, who produced Nick Drake and Fairport Conference, and plenty of others. [. . .]
It appears so unlikely that you’d launch your profession within the Nineteen Fifties with Jamaican music. How did it occur?
Nicely, earlier than 1950 Jamaican music was just about calypso, however inside just a few years the sound techniques began — these large, large amplifiers, the quantity was unbelievable, you could possibly hear them from a mile away. Three or 4 totally different individuals, Coxsone Dodd, King Edward and others, began placing on exhibits in these form of outside compounds, individuals would purchase a ticket, there have been drinks, and so forth. What they had been taking part in at the moment was not Jamaican music — they had been taking part in American R&B, initially popping out of New Orleans, after which transferring up and all through America. In order that sort of took off and it was actually thrilling. That’s once I first began to get into it, and someday there was a man who was singing, and he was actually good. I went to him stated, I’d love to like to file you, he stated yeah. There was a man subsequent to him who additionally sang rather well, “Yeah, I’d like to file too,” after which one other man. In order that’s the way it began with me — actually three, one after the opposite over the course of 35 minutes or one thing like that. I made a file with the primary man referred to as “Little Sugar,” after which it went to primary. Then I launched the opposite man’s file, and it went to primary, after which so did the third man’s. And I even had greater than three hit songs as a result of the B-sides additionally had been within the prime 10.
It wasn’t that my information had been implausible or something. It was simply that it was one thing recent — as an alternative of listening to American music, they had been now listening to Jamaican music. And that’s actually how I began.
Was it arduous being taken severely as a white man working in these genres of music, or was Jamaica was already so multiracial that it wasn’t a giant deal?
Firstly, most likely all people might need thought it was a bit odd me being in that [scene] at the moment. However very quickly after that, in a matter of weeks, the Chinese language neighborhood turned essential in Jamaican music. In actual fact, Lesley Kong, who had a form of a restaurant in Jamaica with two brothers, liked the music and he’s really the one that recorded the primary Bob Marley file. He recorded quite a lot of totally different individuals, and one other couple of Chinese language households that additionally did the identical. [. . .]
Whenever you first met Bob Marley, did you see the magnetism in him, the potential to develop into what he turned?
When [the Wailers] all got here in, they had been stranded in London and got here in to see if we might put collectively some sort of deal which might get them air fare again to Jamaica. They walked in like kings, which was begin — they weren’t wanting stranded and determined. I assumed, Nicely, gosh, this man’s sturdy. After I was speaking with them, I requested them what they had been aiming at, they usually stated they had been attempting to get on Black radio. I stated, “You don’t have any hope.” Which I shouldn’t have stated — it was simply too heavy a factor to say, though at the moment Black radio wasn’t curious about music from Jamaica or music from Africa, particularly as they appeared totally different. They appeared like Rastafari.
Bob stated, “Nicely, what do you assume we should always do?” And I stated, “You need to be like a Black rock act, as a result of I believe the lyrics of your songs might attain a university viewers, and that’s the place I believe you could possibly construct a base.” The opposite two didn’t react positively to that in any respect, and so, , I’m blamed for breaking apart the group. I didn’t intentionally break them up, I simply didn’t see it like that. [. . .]
For full interview, see https://selection.com/2022/music/information/island-records-chris-blackwell-bob-marley-u2-1235288450/