Interview

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“I’m not in the record business,” says Chris Blackwell, founder of the seminal label Island Records and nurturer of the careers of Steve Winwood, Cat Stevens, Bob Marley, U2, and others too numerous to name. “The business is not more important than the body of work that an artist will do,” he continues. “And I think that was the difference on how we approached having a record label.” Although, at 71, Blackwell now spends much of his time in his native Jamaica, he still has homes in England, Ireland, and New York. It was in his Manhattan apartment that we were having this discussion over coffee and toast (which Blackwell made himself) one Sunday morning, just before he was to board a plane to Miami. But despite his protestations, the facts are irrefutable: Blackwell wasn’t just in the record business—he transformed it. And it’s never been the same since.

Born into colonial aristocracy, Blackwell grew up in Jamaica while the country was still under British rule. He attended Harrow, the elite boarding school in England, for a period, and though he was not technically expelled, it was “suggested that Christopher might be happier elsewhere,” as Blackwell himself recalls. He began his working life back on the island, dabbling in various jobs—acting as an aide to the governor, teaching waterskiing, dipping into real estate, and even working as a location scout on the first James Bond film, Dr. No (1962), in which he also has a small cameo. Soon after, he got into music, buying records in New York and selling them to the DJs who ran sound-system dances (i.e., neighborhood lawn parties) back home. He eventually began recording and releasing records himself, creating the foundation of what was to become one of the most influential—and independent—labels of its time: Island Records. Although Blackwell started out working with Jamaican artists, his tastes were varied and eclectic, and Island would ultimately serve as the launching pad for a roster that included Traffic, Fairport Convention, Joe Cocker, and many others in the exploding British music scene of the ’60s and ’70s, and, later, acts such as U2, Melissa Etheridge, and PJ Harvey. But Island and Chris Blackwell will perhaps always be best known for introducing the world to Jamaican music and reggae—most famously, Marley, an artist whose influence and popularity continue to increase even years after his death.

I began working for Blackwell at Island Records after I was introduced to him by Michael Zilkha, whose Ze Records was distributed by Island (the label also gave starts to other independents such as Chrysalis, Beggars Banquet, and Virgin). Blackwell, who was never one for titles, referred to me as his “Minister without portfolio,” although later I added running the creative side of the U.S. label to my ambiguous duties. Blackwell sold Island to Polygram in 1989, and we continued to work together there until we left the corporate fold in 1997 to start Palm Pictures, an audiovisual company that is philosophically based on a concept similar to Island’s. Blackwell, who also ventured into the hotel business (and was partly responsible for the mid-’90s renaissance of Miami Beach), returned to Jamaica almost full-time, developing property on the island, including the GoldenEye resort, once the home of Ian Fleming, who found Blackwell his job on Dr. No.

This year, Island Records celebrates its 50th anniversary. And while Blackwell might protest that he is no longer excited by or even interested in the music business or that he doesn’t follow the entertainment world, he nonetheless interrupted this interview, excitedly, to make me watch a video of a song he thought was “incredible”—in this case, a performer named Mark Johnson, whose Playing For Change videos feature artists from around the world singing verses of Bob Marley songs. And it was.

HOOMAN MAJD: What kind of music did you listen to growing up in Jamaica?

CHRIS BLACKWELL: The early music you heard in Jamaica was kind of soppy. The best of it was country music, by people like Jim Reeves, because they were at least talented and they wrote good songs. But a lot of it was really corny stuff. The only thing you’d hear approaching jazz—and what I loved was jazz—was what Jamaicans called blues music. Now, their blues music wasn’t what the English called blues music. It was more like “Saturday Night Fish Fry” by Louis Jordan—it had this really pumping rhythm to it. Fats Domino had it. There was another guy from New Orleans called Smiley Lewis who had it, too. So that rhythm was something that people in Jamaica tried to emulate, but they got the accent of it wrong, and that’s how ska started—because the rhythm was on the off-beat instead of the on-beat.

MAJD: And you liked that kind of music when you were a kid?

BLACKWELL: I liked that, yeah, but at that time it was sort of . . . I was a teenager by the time that came around. So what I did was I’d go to some of these sound-system dances and I’d hear the music they were playing, and then I’d go to New York and I would buy records. I’d usually go when I had other things to do . . . I can’t remember what the hell I had to do in New York back then . . .

MAJD: I thought you were teaching waterskiing at the Half Moon Hotel in Montego Bay . . .

BLACKWELL: I was teaching waterskiing. I can’t remember why I went up to New York, although I remember a good few trips . . . But I do remember wandering along Sixth Avenue, which at the time was just two- or three-story buildings, and there were lots of little record stores. I remember the thing that was most influential to me was when I’d leaf through records, I’d see the labels on each of them, and I’d know what kind of music it would be. Laurie Records was a bit more pop. Cadence Records was an odd label because they had that record by The Chordettes, “Mr. Sandman,” which was a huge hit, and they also had The First Family record [the hit 1962 comedy album by Vaughn Meader, which parodied the Kennedys of Camelot]. Later, they had jazz artists like Don Shirley, who was Jamaican and who adopted an almost classical-music approach to jazz. But the label I’d really follow was Atlantic. When I saw any Atlantic record, I’d pick it up for sure. And if I ever played an Atlantic record and I didn’t like it, then I’d doubt my own taste because I had so much faith in the brand. So it was that kind of experience that made me feel like I wanted to have my own label. My way of translating the idea was that a label was like a group of artists, and everyone would be proud to be a part of it, because it was like they were all on the same wavelength.