Island Records - A History of 50 Years of Cutting Edge Music

Artists such as U2, Roxy Music, Jethro Tull, KingWinwood's Traffic. Later came progressive bands
Crimson, Bob Marley and - initially and exceptionally:such as King Crimson and Jethro Tull featuring a
Millie Small - all have one major, creative platform indemonic Ian Anderson fronting up with that archetypal
common - a unique record label founded in 1959. Thisrock music instrument - the flute!
record label, in spite of being swallowed up 20 yearsBy the late 60's the label was signing a wave of
ago by Polydor and subsequently enveloped into theeclectic folk acts including Dr Strangely Strange, Nick
Universal brand, remains a byword for independentDrake and Fairport Convention - each hugely individual
creativity. This was Island Records, founded inand influential - and shortly afterwards adding a strand
Kingston, Jamaica by Chris Blackwell and despite aof art-pop to the mix, via Bryan Ferry's Roxy Music.
modest beginning pressing discs on borrowedBut of course, it does not stop there. Moving back to
equipment at a nearby radio station and scratchingits Jamaican roots, the label signed a band locally feted
together some office space on a tiny budget, thein hometown Jamaica called Bob Marley and the
business grew following a move to London in 1962,Wailers. Convinced that they had found a "black rock
bringing with it a consolidation of the new wave of skastar as big as Hendrix", according to Chris Blackwell,
and American R&B which lit a fuse in drabIsland Records invested heavily on his instincts and
late-fifties / early 60's Britain.produced Marley's first album "Catch a Fire". History
Historians will say of course, that it was with thewas made. Soon, Bob Marley was to become Island
Beatles and the Mersey Sound, that popular musicRecords' biggest selling act.
suddenly woke up to itself after the initial flush ofFollowing this reassertion of reggae as a musical force,
Mid-50's Rock & Roll had long since waned into amany reggae acts followed, including Burning Spear,
balladeering wasteland and a renewed mish-mash ofToots and the Maytals and Steel Pulse. But alongside
tame hybrid styles geared to "family entertainment" -these were also Robert Palmer, Grace Jones and
and of course there is no doubt that that the earlyTom Waits - and more tellingly, from the Dublin
Mersey sound crashed through all this big-time. But thisconnections which started with Dr Strangely Strange
was also a period of a massive cross-fertilisation ofand which influenced the development of acts such as
styles, and for Island Records, the first big event wasThin Lizzy, Island signed a new and raw act called U2 ,
to achieve a crossover for ska music into thewho were, of course, to become the stellar rock act
mainstream via a crackling, populist yet unquestionablyof the 1980's and some would say beyond.
"different" sound - Millie Small's "My Boy Lollipop" - aThe influence of Island Records is thus there for all to
smash hit in 1964 and a harbinger of things to come insee. When looking at the major waves of creative
terms of breaking new acts with styles which wereforces against the explosive backdrop of changing
uniquely ahead of the curve of what was acceptablypopular music tastes in the decades after the 1960's,
mainstream.attention is grabbed by labels such as Island Records.
Thus 3 years after this, Island was focussing onSuch labels took the commercial chances which
Blues-based rock music / psychedelic folk crossoversensured a raft of creative flowerings, and regular,
from a crop of white musicians including therisk-embracing forays into uncharted waters of
extraordinary John Martyn as well as Free (a majorcreativity.
act of the festival circuit), Spooky Tooth and Stevie