Chris Blackwell was born in London 1937. Even though being born in London, Blackwell spent near enough all of is childhood in Jamaica. With education requirements Blackwell was sent back to England at the age of 10 to finish his education and would later on return to Jamaica in 1955.
Once he returned to Jamaica he grasped a number of jobs which included real estate, selling motor scooters and having a small involvemt with a campaign that was connected to the Jamaican government.
During this time Blackwell heard a music ensemble led by blind pianist "Lance Hayward" in Montego Bay.
From watching/hearing this particular ensemble Blackwell decided to record them under "Island Records" which he borrowed from Alec Waugh's novel "Island In The Sun".
In the year 1960, Blackwell opened up the first Island HQ office in Kingston, Jamaica so that he could release a series of singles he had worked on there. By releasing the jamaican music in Kingston the Jamaican immigration in the UK were either buying or listening to the records being displayed. In 1962 after realising that the larger revenue on record purchases were being made in the UK, Blackwell decided to relocate his head quarters to the UK. After relocating to the UK it was the musical genre of Ska that was the main success of Island records however these records were still being produced by Jamaican producers such as "Duke Reid" and "Leslie Kong". In 1964 it was realised that Blackwell had released hundreds of singles from Island Records and also other subsidiary labels in both Jamaica and the UK.Amongst these hundreds of singles Blackwell discovered 15 year old singer "Millie" and produced a song titled "My Boy Lollipop" which went to sell a staggering 7 million copies world wide which structured the global fortunes for Island Records. This also affected Blackwell due to "Millie" going on tour around the globe and constantly missing her family. After the situation was assessed Blackwell decided we wanted to produce artists that would be long term clients and go the distance as it were. After reaching great success, Blackwell licensed the record to Fontana records simply due to the fact of the limitations on Island Records as it was and independent label.
As the 1970's approached Island records became a launch pad for introducing critically acclaimed stars such as "Robert Palmer" and "Mott The Hoople". Not also was Island continuously bring out hits with acclaimed stars, Blackwell licensed distribution to other companies to launch others potential careers.A huge part of my business "Million Dollar House" it is essential to cover as much ground as you can when searching for artists. A huge similarity with the mindset of me and Blackwell is always looking for ways to expand your business as he did in this case by distributing licenses to other companies to engulf more business.
A majority of the 70's for Island records was creating the next step for success. Blackwell did this by distributing licenses, cross labelling artists to subsidiary labels for more exposure and publicity for example Chrysalis and E.G Records exposing artists such as "Bryan Ferry, Jethro Toll and Roxy Music". He used this method so he could engulf a new set of artists however Blackwell was subsidiary labelling a lot of his artists as he wanted to publicise and expose artists of a different genre and cultural background which again relating to my business, always consider your options so it will expand a larger target market. By doing this, by the 90's Blackwell had signed artists such as "U2, Ultravox and Pulp".
In the mists of all these drastic changes that Blackwell had made during Island Records morphing stage, Blackwell retreated back to his Jamaican roots to stumble upon one of the biggest reggae artists still to this day. Island records Produced Bob Marley into the industry which would lead on to create a huge success for Blackwell and Marley. It was also in this time even though Blackwell wanted to take his career into a new musical direction, Marley was creating such a huge inspiration to reggae that there were just continuous artists left right and centre wanting to create the Ska reggae not only in Jamaica but all over the world.
Im other unique talents and expansion, Blackwell decided to direct Island in form of film and film sound production. In 1971 Blackwell backed production in his first film project "The Harder They come" which featured actor "Jimmy Cliff". From this point on alongside with the record labels. Blackwell took huge involvement within the film industry and working alongside such actors like "Bob Hoskins" and "River Phoenix".
It was announced in 1989 that Chris Blackwell sold Island Records to the UK Polygram group for £272 million. And buy being involved with film production and sound he would cleverly gather royalties from the film box office. Selling Island as Umbrella enterprise with subsidiary branches underneath it acting as branches, Blackwell would have created a gargantuan amount of record sales relating to the £272 million profit gain.
