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Island Records: how they became an artists' paradise
As Island Records celebrates its 50th birthday, Andrew Perry tells the story of a label that has been a home to mavericks and global acts .
By Andrew Perry
Last Updated: 5:22PM GMT 11 Mar 2009
Island Records: Amy Winehouse, Grace Jones, and Bob Marley Photo: CLARA MOLDEN/GETTY/AP
This week, a series of concerts was announced to celebrate the 50th anniversary of one of Britain's most enduringly excellent record labels, Island Records. The programme, which runs at the Shepherd's Bush Empire in London through the final week in May, underlines the extraordinary diversity upon which Island's roster has always been built.
At one concert, Paul Weller, the so-called "Modfather", is supported by the Jamaican jazz guitarist Ernest Ranglin and the
prog-rock legends Spooky Tooth. At another, Cat Stevens, the singer-songwriter now known as Yusuf, is joined by Senegal's Baaba Maal. On the closing night, the label's biggest contemporary star, Amy Winehouse, will perform after a set from reggae giants Toots & the Maytals.
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It is a testament to the initial vision of the label's Jamaican founder, Chris Blackwell, that not only have all these different strains of music co-existed under his one roof, but that they have all contributed to some sense of a label identity, where any music of quality would find a home.
The only regret about the dates is that they will not feature the two biggest names that Blackwell brought to the world: Bob Marley, who died in 1981, and U2, who signed to Island in 1980 but with their recent album have moved on to Mercury/Interscope.
It was Marley who made Island a global concern, but his phenomenal success was the culmination of 15 years' work in bringing Jamaican music into Britain. Blackwell, a white Jamaican whose parents had sold up the family's bottled foods business, Crosse & Blackwell, none too profitably, started Island on a shoestring in the Caribbean in 1959, initially releasing local R&B, and Jamaica's new indigenous pop music, ska.
Three years later, he relocated the label to London, to capitalise on the growing West Indian community there. Blackwell shared offices with a similarly inclined indie label, Trojan. He legendarily "marketed" his latest releases to the country's reggae emporia himself from the back of his much-travelled Mini Cooper.
When the Beatles exploded in Britain, Blackwell signed his own beat combo, the Spencer Davis Group. The label soon became a kind of bipolar operation, supplying reggae to black Britons, and
prog-rock to whites. By the turn of the Seventies, his roster was thick with hairy arists such as Jethro Tull, Free, King Crimson, Fairport Convention and Cat Stevens, as well as strangely named
also-rans such as Spooky Tooth, Quintessence, Blodwyn Pig and Heavy Jelly.
Island was the epitome of the hippie underground ethic, which was rising up to challenge established labels such as EMI, Decca and Phillips. Its identity was reinforced by cool artwork and funky pink labels.
"Chris Blackwell always loved sleeves," says Chris Salewicz, an esteemed British rock journalist and biographer, who has edited a new book about Island's 50 years in business. "He always said that if a record looked great from the outside, then you knew there must be something good inside as well, so all their sleeves were absolute works of art." Having thus established Island in the lucrative new albums market, Blackwell was keen to break reggae through similar channels. He had been grooming Jimmy Cliff as reggae's first superstar, even landing him a role in the movie, The Harder They Come, only for Cliff to waltz off to EMI. Looking for a replacement, he fell upon Bob Marley's Wailers, once a middle-ranking ska trio, but, by 1972, prime movers in the radicalised groove of reggae.
For Marley's first LP, Catch a Fire, Blackwell famously hired in London-based session musicians to graft overdubs on to the Wailers' recordings, to try and make this exotic new music palatable to white rock audiences. It took several more albums for Marley to cross over, but Blackwell's investment was ultimately repaid many times over.
When I spoke to him two years ago, Blackwell pointed out that he and Marley didn't "hang out" as such – their relationship was professional, creative. However, through the Seventies, as the rock world became more hard-nosed and commercially driven, Island retained its sense of hippie idealism. When Marley landed in London to record his world-beating Exodus album, there were football matches between his entourage and Island's staff in Battersea Park.
"Island's thing was that they would always develop artists," says Salewicz, "and it didn't seem to matter how long it took for them to come good. Just look at John Martyn, Robert Palmer, even U2." In the late Seventies, Blackwell notably didn't buy into punk, because he saw no longevity in it. He plucked U2 from the post-punk landscape, however, and nurtured them for the long haul. Once they'd broken through, the band developed a routine for brainstorming a new album's sound – essentially via a committee, made up of the band, their management, their producers and Blackwell himself – which typified Island's hands-on, collective ethos.
"It was always very personalised with Chris," says Salewicz. "He'd be in the studios at four in the morning with Marley, or going through artwork with people at his home in the middle of the night." It was for this sense of commitment that artists such as Tom Waits, Grace Jones and P J Harvey came to the label. In 1989, though, Blackwell sold up to Polygram, which in turn morphed into Universal. For a few years, he retained some creative involvement in his brainchild, and he continues to give it his blessing, from a distance. Now 72, he recently described Island's latest multi-platinum seller, Amy Winehouse as "a classic Island maverick", and he will doubtless be a prominent guest at the celebrations in May.
Somehow, even within a conglomerate environment, his label has retained some of its boutiquey, indie ethos. Its latest crop of guitar acts, such as Keane, the Feeling and the Fratellis, are, like the Spencer Davis Group, hardly on a par with the Beatles, but, unlike artists on other major labels, all feel a special connection with Island.
"You could say that it's just a record label," says Paul Weller, who lately returned to Island with his 22 Dreams album, "but I think it's a bit more than that. It's all those great records you've got in your collection, from John Martyn to Traffic to Nick Drake to all the great reggae, ska and soul records. It's some heritage, isn't it? It has still got a very human and creative side to it as well, which I don't think you get everywhere. They're nice people, and they actually like their music."
For the anniversary year, the label will be releasing numerous special box sets, DVDs and remastered editions of 50 classic albums from the vaults. The days of reggae kickarounds may be long gone, but, as a brand, Island, half a century old and counting, remains in a league of its own.
As Island Records celebrates its 50th birthday, Andrew Perry tells the story of a label that has been a home to mavericks and global acts .
By Andrew Perry
Last Updated: 5:22PM GMT 11 Mar 2009
Island Records: Amy Winehouse, Grace Jones, and Bob Marley Photo: CLARA MOLDEN/GETTY/AP This week, a series of concerts was announced to celebrate the 50th anniversary of one of Britain's most enduringly excellent record labels, Island Records. The programme, which runs at the Shepherd's Bush Empire in London through the final week in May, underlines the extraordinary diversity upon which Island's roster has always been built.
At one concert, Paul Weller, the so-called "Modfather", is supported by the Jamaican jazz guitarist Ernest Ranglin and the
prog-rock legends Spooky Tooth. At another, Cat Stevens, the singer-songwriter now known as Yusuf, is joined by Senegal's Baaba Maal. On the closing night, the label's biggest contemporary star, Amy Winehouse, will perform after a set from reggae giants Toots & the Maytals.
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It is a testament to the initial vision of the label's Jamaican founder, Chris Blackwell, that not only have all these different strains of music co-existed under his one roof, but that they have all contributed to some sense of a label identity, where any music of quality would find a home.
The only regret about the dates is that they will not feature the two biggest names that Blackwell brought to the world: Bob Marley, who died in 1981, and U2, who signed to Island in 1980 but with their recent album have moved on to Mercury/Interscope.
It was Marley who made Island a global concern, but his phenomenal success was the culmination of 15 years' work in bringing Jamaican music into Britain. Blackwell, a white Jamaican whose parents had sold up the family's bottled foods business, Crosse & Blackwell, none too profitably, started Island on a shoestring in the Caribbean in 1959, initially releasing local R&B, and Jamaica's new indigenous pop music, ska.
Three years later, he relocated the label to London, to capitalise on the growing West Indian community there. Blackwell shared offices with a similarly inclined indie label, Trojan. He legendarily "marketed" his latest releases to the country's reggae emporia himself from the back of his much-travelled Mini Cooper.
When the Beatles exploded in Britain, Blackwell signed his own beat combo, the Spencer Davis Group. The label soon became a kind of bipolar operation, supplying reggae to black Britons, and
prog-rock to whites. By the turn of the Seventies, his roster was thick with hairy arists such as Jethro Tull, Free, King Crimson, Fairport Convention and Cat Stevens, as well as strangely named
also-rans such as Spooky Tooth, Quintessence, Blodwyn Pig and Heavy Jelly.
Island was the epitome of the hippie underground ethic, which was rising up to challenge established labels such as EMI, Decca and Phillips. Its identity was reinforced by cool artwork and funky pink labels.
"Chris Blackwell always loved sleeves," says Chris Salewicz, an esteemed British rock journalist and biographer, who has edited a new book about Island's 50 years in business. "He always said that if a record looked great from the outside, then you knew there must be something good inside as well, so all their sleeves were absolute works of art." Having thus established Island in the lucrative new albums market, Blackwell was keen to break reggae through similar channels. He had been grooming Jimmy Cliff as reggae's first superstar, even landing him a role in the movie, The Harder They Come, only for Cliff to waltz off to EMI. Looking for a replacement, he fell upon Bob Marley's Wailers, once a middle-ranking ska trio, but, by 1972, prime movers in the radicalised groove of reggae.
For Marley's first LP, Catch a Fire, Blackwell famously hired in London-based session musicians to graft overdubs on to the Wailers' recordings, to try and make this exotic new music palatable to white rock audiences. It took several more albums for Marley to cross over, but Blackwell's investment was ultimately repaid many times over.
When I spoke to him two years ago, Blackwell pointed out that he and Marley didn't "hang out" as such – their relationship was professional, creative. However, through the Seventies, as the rock world became more hard-nosed and commercially driven, Island retained its sense of hippie idealism. When Marley landed in London to record his world-beating Exodus album, there were football matches between his entourage and Island's staff in Battersea Park.
"Island's thing was that they would always develop artists," says Salewicz, "and it didn't seem to matter how long it took for them to come good. Just look at John Martyn, Robert Palmer, even U2." In the late Seventies, Blackwell notably didn't buy into punk, because he saw no longevity in it. He plucked U2 from the post-punk landscape, however, and nurtured them for the long haul. Once they'd broken through, the band developed a routine for brainstorming a new album's sound – essentially via a committee, made up of the band, their management, their producers and Blackwell himself – which typified Island's hands-on, collective ethos.
"It was always very personalised with Chris," says Salewicz. "He'd be in the studios at four in the morning with Marley, or going through artwork with people at his home in the middle of the night." It was for this sense of commitment that artists such as Tom Waits, Grace Jones and P J Harvey came to the label. In 1989, though, Blackwell sold up to Polygram, which in turn morphed into Universal. For a few years, he retained some creative involvement in his brainchild, and he continues to give it his blessing, from a distance. Now 72, he recently described Island's latest multi-platinum seller, Amy Winehouse as "a classic Island maverick", and he will doubtless be a prominent guest at the celebrations in May.
Somehow, even within a conglomerate environment, his label has retained some of its boutiquey, indie ethos. Its latest crop of guitar acts, such as Keane, the Feeling and the Fratellis, are, like the Spencer Davis Group, hardly on a par with the Beatles, but, unlike artists on other major labels, all feel a special connection with Island.
"You could say that it's just a record label," says Paul Weller, who lately returned to Island with his 22 Dreams album, "but I think it's a bit more than that. It's all those great records you've got in your collection, from John Martyn to Traffic to Nick Drake to all the great reggae, ska and soul records. It's some heritage, isn't it? It has still got a very human and creative side to it as well, which I don't think you get everywhere. They're nice people, and they actually like their music."
For the anniversary year, the label will be releasing numerous special box sets, DVDs and remastered editions of 50 classic albums from the vaults. The days of reggae kickarounds may be long gone, but, as a brand, Island, half a century old and counting, remains in a league of its own.