Cat Stevens sings for his supper
Disillusioned with the pop world and deal-less following his hospitalization for TB, Cat Stevens was persuaded to sign for Island for the simple reason that Blackwell is a distant scion of the Crosse & Blackwell dynasty, the makers of Stevens’ favourite soup.
Ignition for Bob Marley
When Blackwell first met Marley and the Wailers, they were considered ‘unsignable’. After giving them £4,000 upfront to record Catch a Fire, he told them he wanted to add a ‘crossover feel’ to their purist reggae. Amazingly, they agreed. ‘Chris got the privilege,’ said Bob’s widow Rita Marley. ‘I think he feels good about being the one that really had that confidence in Bob Marley and The Wailers to put them where they are today.’
Music gets a makeover
Island was one of the first labels to realise the power of packaging. The original release of Marley’s Catch a Fire album, in a fold-out Zippo-shaped sleeve, was a groundbreaking piece of artwork. Blackwell, assisted by art director Tony Wright, understood the importance of telling the story of an artist through their sleeves and videos (the first video ever shown on MTV was by Island artists Buggles).
Getting to the Point
Blackwell established the Compass Point recording studio in 1977 as a retreat for his artists and place for them to cross-pollinate. The results included Rock Lobster by the B-52s and Once in a Lifetime by Talking Heads. As former Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz told Time Out, ‘The studio was a really great place to work – it was always very copasetic there. Pop music used to be really physically and mentally demanding. That was a place where you could really relax and enjoy your work.’
Playing Swordfishtrombones
Released in 1982 (and recorded at Compass Point), Swordfishtrombones is considered to be the quintessential Tom Waits album, and his first step to becoming the willfully obtuse jazz-rock primitivist he is today. It was a huge influence on many artists, including PJ Harvey, who says it ‘transformed my idea of what could be done with music’. Perhaps not surprisingly, Harvey later signed to Island herself.
Grace Jones invents doom-disco
The Slits asides, Island didn’t put out many punk records, but Blackwell saw potential in Grace Jones for a form of ‘black punk music’. Blackwell pinned a five-foot blow-up on the studio wall of Jones sporting a GI buzzcut and looking intimidating, and instructed all concerned that the image defined what her new album, Warm Leatherette, would sound like.
Elevation for U2
U2 released live movie Under a Blood Red Sky through Island Records. Paul McGuinness, U2’s manager said of it: ‘It was a big roll of the dice, but it really paid off. As propaganda, that film worked spectacularly. MTV loved it, and suddenly we had the tools to show around the world how great they were live.’
Amy goes Back to Black
Island’s policy of basically letting their artists get on with making whatever they want has resulted in two huge albums for Miss Winehouse. She emailed Time Out from St Lucia to tell us about her love for the label. ‘Island have been amazing in letting me do what I wanna do. When I did Frank, what I loved were jazz and hip hop. I was eager to get them together and make songs that I loved. The first album was a learning curve. The second album was more a complete work, almost themed. I was just thinking about all those old jukebox tunes. It’s just nice to do something different.’
VV Brown shows us the future
‘It was the first label that actually wanted to sign me for what I was doing,’ says Brown. ‘They didn’t want to pair me up with other songwriters, or style me, or package me for an audience.
