Chris Blackwell is the Founder of Island Records and has been credited as “the single person most responsible for turning the world on to reggae music”.<\/p>\n
Through Island, Blackwell launched the careers of artists including Bob Marley and U2. He is also the Founder of music publisher Blue Mountain Music.<\/p>\n
Born in the UK but growing up largely in Jamaica, Chris Blackwell’s earliest encounters with the music industry included selling records bought in New York at marked-up prices, and running a jukebox company, with 63 machines across the country.<\/p>\n
Alongside radio and audio engineer Graeme Goodall, Chris Blackwell founded Island Records in 1958 with a start-up investment of $10,000 provided by his parents. The label’s first release came after Blackwell overheard a band led by blind pianist Lance Hayward, and asked if he could record them.<\/p>\n
Blackwell moved Island to the UK in 1962, after realising they were selling more records there than in Jamaica. The following year, he invited 15-year-old Jamaican Millie Smalls to London to record a cover of\u00a0My Boy Lollipop.<\/em> Licensed to Fontana, it reached No.2 in the UK charts. At the same time, Blackwell discovered the Spencer Davis Group and Steve Winwood in Birmingham. In 1967, Paper Sun<\/em> by Traffic, Steve Winwood’s new group, gave Island its first Top Five single.<\/p>\n With continued success throughout the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, with artists including Bob Marley, Cat Stevens and U2, Chris Blackwell sold his stake in Island in 1989<\/a> to PolyGram, but remained Chief Executive of the label.<\/p>\n Blackwell left PolyGram in 1997, later commenting<\/a>: “I never really had a job until I sold Island to PolyGram in 1989. It had gotten too corporate.”<\/p>\n Blackwell went on to form film company Palm Pictures and run a chain of boutique hotels in Miami and the Caribbean, including the Goldeneye estate, once the Jamaican home of Bond creator Ian Fleming.<\/p>\n He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001.<\/p>\n In 2008, Blackwell launched his own brand of rum.<\/p>\n Blue Mountain Music, the publishing company set up by Blackwell in 1962, signed a global publishing administration deal with Kobalt in 2015<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\nChris Blackwell: Selling to PolyGram and present day ventures<\/h6>\n
\nChris Blackwell: Personal philosophy<\/h6>\n