Compared to larger-than-life music moguls such as Malcolm McLaren, Tony Wilson or Alan McGee, Chris Blackwell is a much more low-key individual. Blackwell founded Island Records in Jamaica in 1959. Prior to running the label, he flogged records from the boot of his car all over London and stocked Jamaican jukeboxes with the latest up-and-coming sounds.
Island Records would eventually occupy an illustrious and lucrative space between an independent and a major label, signing Bob Marley, Grace Jones, Cat Stevens, U2, Roxy Music and Tom Waits, to mention just a tiny few.
Its founder seldom gives interviews. As he approaches his 85th birthday, Chris Blackwell is publishing a very colourful memoir called The Islander: My Life in Music and Beyond, written with prolific author Paul Morley, who penned last year’s superb biography From Manchester with Love: The Life and Opinions of Tony Wilson.
The Islander tells the engrossing tale about how a “directionless Anglo-Irish-Jamaican boarding-school flameout” would establish one of the most important record labels in musical history. He considers himself to be a member of “the Lucky Sperm Club”, born into a family who inherited the Crosse & Blackwell food brand empire.
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“There wasn’t any specific single reason for writing this,” Blackwell reveals on the phone from London. “I worked with Paul Morley at Island Records about 20 years ago. He wrote a book with Grace Jones called I’ll Never Write My Memoirs, so I felt that he would be great to work with on this. I’d never really thought about doing a book before. Not a moment of it was painful or laborious in any way. Working with Paul again was great. Digging back into the past and unearthing these stories became a lot of fun.”
Blackwell considers putting Jamaican culture and music on the map to be among his finest achievements. “I love Jamaica and I love the people of Jamaica,” he says. “It’s the island where I grew up. I was sick as a child, so I spent most of my time with Jamaicans. I had little or no contact with the outside world in general. During those eight years or so of my life, I became immersed with Jamaican people and I fell in love with them. I was inspired by how they got through their lives, which was not easy. From very early on, I just wanted to try and do something which could help in some manner or other.”
Early on in The Islander, Blackwell describes how a group of Rastafarians saved his life after being stranded at sea. He never held the same prejudices as many in mainstream white Jamaican society did towards Rastas. Later, he became obsessed with their music and culture and helped put them on the world stage.
“I took to music from a very early age,” Blackwell says. “My father used to play classical music like Wagner and Puccini. It was all on 78s in those days, which you had to take off after three minutes. I spent no time with other children. Jamaican people looked after me. I played games and chopped wood with them, walked through the forests and hills. I just loved the people and I still do.”
Blackwell notes in fascinating chapters entitled Meeting Bob Marley and Meeting U2 that he was immediately taken aback by the strong personalities of both artists. “I was very impressed with U2 at the outset for two reasons,” he says. “Firstly, the passion and the drive the band had, led by Bono, was infectious. Secondly, they had a proper businessperson in Paul McGuinness. He could build the band without getting in the way and dressed in a suit when very few in the music industry did. I felt that these guys really had a drive and this guy was going to get them there, so I wanted to sign them.”
Other Irish acts on the books at Island Records at some point include The Cranberries and My Bloody Valentine. Blackwell has a long association with Ireland, through his family as well as U2.
“My grandfather was Irish and my father grew up loving Ireland,” he reveals. “They had a home in Clew Bay near Westport. It is a stunningly beautiful house where you can look right across the water and see Croagh Patrick. It has a religious feel to it and is so majestic. I love it there. I travelled there on my own at an early age. It was one of the strangest trips I’ve ever done. I went to a station called Westland Row or something, and took the train. I didn’t really know where I was going. I went to the house and spent a lot of time walking around the bay.”
In 1989, Blackwell sold his stake in Island to PolyGram for $300 million, explaining at the time: “It had gotten too big and too corporate for me and I couldn’t really handle it.” He served as the CEO of Island Entertainment for a decade. In addition to becoming one of Universal Music Group’s most prestigious legacy labels, Island Records continued to break new talent in the noughties, such as Amy Winehouse. Today, its roster still features some of the biggest names in the world of entertainment, such as Drake and The Weeknd.
Since Island’s 50th anniversary in 2009, Blackwell has moved away from the music industry into other business ventures. “My primary focus recently has been the hotel business,” he says. “I was fortunate enough to be able to buy a property that was owned by Ian Fleming. That property is called Goldeneye, which is heavily associated with James Bond and everything that emerged from those books and movies. It’s very exciting because it is like a little piece of theatre in a sense. We’ve developed something from a few strips of land and a couple of houses. It’s not unlike the record business is in some ways, where you have a new act and you want them to grow.”
In his compellingly juicy book, Blackwell describes a typical weekend in Goldeneye as featuring the sight of Elon Musk and Ryan Gosling propping up the bar as Jay-Z and Beyoncé enjoy a secret romantic getaway. It is yet another example of one of the book’s many dazzling yarns about some of the biggest acts, celebrities and icons of modern times.
Blackwell’s mother, Blanche Adelaide Lindo, was an inspirational muse to both Noël Coward and Ian Fleming, reputedly inspiring the 007 author to create two of the original Bond girls, Pussy Galore and Honeychile Ryder. Chris refers to Fleming, Coward and Errol Flynn as his unofficial mentors. “By the time I got to hanging out with Grace Jones or Marianne Faithfull, who had their own extreme ways of living a daring life, I’d pretty much seen everything,” he matter-of-factly states.
Even though his story could easily lend itself to a screen adaptation, Blackwell baulks at the idea. “I wouldn’t be very keen on anyone playing me,” he says. “I don’t really like being on the frontline. It’s just not my scene. What I like to do is to recognise the talent in somebody else and connect with them. If you get along, you go to work and do what you can to help them.”
The musical business veteran studiously avoids the limelight, noting that there are not too many photographs in existence of him posing with his charges. “I’m not really somebody who goes out to seek attention,” he claims. “I prefer to be in the backline rather than the frontline. I’m not someone who pushes myself because I don’t have any specific gifts. I’m not a writer, or a songwriter. I can’t play any instruments. I’m much more comfortable working in this way, although I guess some of it is shyness in a way.”
The Islander is an extraordinary tale about how this Anglo-Irish-Jamaican flameout conquered the entertainment business, building a formidable multinational completely from scratch. “It all came about by chance,” Blackwell says. “All the way through my life, I’ve been very fortunate. I’ve been blessed by music and met lots of like-minded people. On a few occasions, it didn’t turn out quite as I hoped, but on most occasions, it did. I’ve kept a rapport with most people that I’ve worked with over the years, which is an absolute joy. It’s been my whole life. I am extremely grateful.”
The Islander: My Life in Music and Beyond by Chris Blackwell with Paul Morley is out now on Nine Eight Books.
