Island Records
Island Records is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded in Jamaica by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall, and Leslie Kong in 1959, and was eventually sold to PolyGram in 1989. Island and A&M Records, another label recently acquired by PolyGram, were both at the time the largest independent record labels in history, with Island having exerted a major influence on the progressive music scene in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s.
Island Records operates four international divisions: Island US, Island UK, Island Australia, and Island France. Current key people include Imran Majid and Justin Eshak who were named co-CEOs of Island Records in 2021. Partially due to its significant legacy, Island remains one of UMG's pre-eminent record labels.
History
Rise of the brand
Island Records was founded in Jamaica on 4 July 1959 by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall and Leslie Kong, and financed by Stanley Borden from RKO. Its name was inspired by the Harry Belafonte song "Island in the Sun". Blackwell stated in 2009: "I loved music so much, I just wanted to get into it, or be as close to it as I could." Blackwell's first album was Lance Hayward at the Half Moon Hotel, which was recorded in late 1959.Tom Hayes, the label's sales manager between 1965 and 1967, referred to the early period of the label in the UK as "organized chaos". The 1964 hit, "My Boy Lollipop", sung by Jamaican singer Millie Small, was the label's first success in the UK and led to a world tour that also involved Blackwell. In a 50th anniversary documentary, Blackwell stated that he was only interested in building long-term careers at that stage in time, rather than short-term projects. Suzette Newman has been a close colleague of Chris Blackwell's since working together in the early days of Island Records, and while there she ran the Mango world music label. Suzette Newman and Chris Salewicz were the editors for the book The Story of Island Records: Keep On Running.
Blackwell relocated to England in May 1962 to garner greater levels of attention after the local Jamaican sound systems proved to be overwhelmingly successful. The label was based at a now demolished basement in Kilburn, London Borough of Brent, in a property that was used by Sonny Roberts's Planetone label and whose landlord was Lee Gopthal who would later create Trojan Records. The vast majority of the artists who had signed to Blackwell's fledgling label while he was in Jamaica agreed to allow the musical entrepreneur to release their music in the UK. While in England, Blackwell travelled throughout the city carrying his stock with him and sold to record stores in the city. He did not provide any copies to radio stations, as they would not play any of the Island music; the music was also not reviewed by the press. Meanwhile, Goodall left to start the Doctor Bird record label in 1965.
Blackwell signed the Spencer Davis Group to the label. The group became very popular and Island started their own independent series to spotlight UK rock talent. They signed artists such as John Martyn, Fairport Convention, Free, and greatly influenced the growing FM radio market. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, they were a major label in England with artists including Roxy Music, King Crimson, Sparks, Traffic, the Wailers, Cat Stevens, Steve Winwood and many others.
For Toots and the Maytals, the group that introduced the term "reggae" in song with their 1968 single "Do the Reggay", Chris Blackwell was the one who decided on the line-up of the group before introducing them to an international audience. Blackwell had signed Bob Marley, and now Toots and the Maytals. In November 2016, Jackie Jackson described the formation of the group in a radio interview for Kool 97 FM Jamaica. Accompanied by Paul Douglas and Radcliffe "Dougie" Bryan in studio, Jackson explained:
We're all original members of Toots and the Maytals band. First it was Toots and the Maytals, three guys: Toots, Raleigh, and Jerry.... And then they were signed to Island Records, Chris Blackwell. And we were their recording band. One day we were summoned to Chris' house. And he says, "Alright gentleman, I think it's time. This Toots and the Maytals looks like it's going to be a big thing". By this time he had already signed Bob. So in his camp, Island Records, there was Toots and the Maytals], the late Bob Marley; we were talking about reggae is going international now. We kept on meeting and he decided that the backing band that back all of the songs, the recording band, should be the Maytals band. So everything came under Toots and the Maytals. So we became Maytals also. And then we hit the road in 1975... we were the opening act for the Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, and Jackson Browne. We were the opening act for The Who for about two weeks.
In 1969, Island Records acquired a deconsecrated 17th century church building at 8-10 Basing Street, in the Ladbroke Grove area of Notting Hill in West London. The building was refurbished to create the Island Studios recording studio, while also serving as the new location for Island Records' offices.
The first Toots and the Maytals album released and distributed by Chris Blackwell's Island Records was Funky Kingston. The Maytals had recently added a full-time backing band that included drummer Paul Douglas and bassist Jackie Jackson, and Chris Blackwell joined the group in the studio as a co-producer for the album. Music critic Lester Bangs described the album in Stereo Review as "perfection, the most exciting and diversified set of reggae tunes by a single artist yet released." As Blackwell says, "The Maytals were unlike anything else... sensational, raw and dynamic." Blackwell had a strong commitment to Toots and the Maytals, saying: "I've known Toots longer than anybody – much longer than Bob. Toots is one of the purest human beings I've met in my life, pure almost to a fault."
Despite the initial establishment work that Blackwell completed almost single-handedly, Island struggled as a business in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Bob Marley's 1981 death was detrimental to the label, especially after its having engineered Marley's international breakthrough only a few years earlier, while Irish rock band U2, which had signed to Island in March 1980, was growing in popularity, but had not yet reached the international superstar status that was to come. In 1981, Blackwell also used the label to finance a new film production and distribution company, producing the film Countryman. In 1982, Paul Morley and producer Trevor Horn started the ZTT label under the Island banner and Blackwell was known to approve excessive spending by the label. Morley recalls in a 2009 book about Island Records:
I eventually grew to appreciate how Chris Blackwell, and therefore Island Records, was not about one thing, or one style, or one system, or one way of doing things... reflecting how the world functions and reinvents itself precisely because it is a fluid, sometimes dangerous, always exhilarating union of systems and beliefs and the best way of allowing the world to progress is to mix up and place in glorious conflict these various systems and beliefs.
In 1983, Island's film production division formed a partnership with Shep Gordon's Alive Enterprises to create Island Alive, which had success with films such as Kiss of the Spider Woman, Koyaanisqatsi, and Stop Making Sense. The partnership was dissolved in 1985. In August 1987, the company was not able to pay US$5 million that it owed to U2 in royalties for The Joshua Tree album, as it had diverted the funds to finance several unsuccessful films. U2 responded by negotiating a deal whereby they received a stake in the label that was estimated to be around 10 per cent.
The label's 4th & Broadway division, operating since the mid-1980s, achieved some success marketing alternative hip-hop and dance-pop music with artists such as Eric B. and Rakim and the Stereo MCs. Mango was another Island dance-oriented subsidiary, while it was singer Robert Palmer who achieved worldwide success with the rock song "Addicted to Love" in 1986. African musicians such as King Sunny Adé and Angélique Kidjo were also championed by Blackwell.
PolyGram acquisition
In July 1989, Blackwell sold Island Records and Island Music to the PolyGram UK Group for £180 million; he explained in 2009: "It became too big and too corporate for me and I couldn't really handle it." Following the sale, Island was no longer an independent company, but Blackwell was given a position on PolyGram's board and stayed on as CEO of PolyGram's new Island Entertainment division for ten years. PolyGram immediately began reissuing much of the Island back catalogue on compact disc and expanded Island's reach through its global manufacturing and distribution network, but the label was relatively unfocused in the 1990s. Between 1993 and 1995, Island had a sub-label called the Island Red Label, which focused on independent artists.Blackwell eventually ended his association with the company in 1997, as the corporate life hindered the independent ethos of his personal life. "I never really had a job until I sold Island to PolyGram in 1989. It had gotten too corporate," he commented afterwards. After Blackwell left, PolyGram closed Island's film business. Blackwell left to found the Palm Pictures company and run a chain of boutique hotels in Miami, US and the Caribbean, including the very exclusive Goldeneye, once the Jamaican home of James Bond creator Ian Fleming. Then in May 1998, all of PolyGram and its associated labels were purchased by Seagram which announced its plan to integrate PolyGram with UMG to produce an estimated cost savings, within a couple of years, of between US$275 million and $300 million annually. Seagram further explained that the acquisition would unite a significant international presence with a thriving domestic business, as more than three-quarters of PolyGram's sales were outside the US.