Brass Trax

Island Records started in Jamaica. The record label, which turns 50 this year, began in the back of Chris Blackwell’s van, where he hawked ska and rocksteady singles, and, despite its migration into rock, hip hop, and world music, the label would never finally abandon the music that quite literally brought it to life: reggae and its precursors.

It has been a fruitful and symbiotic relationship, if not always an aesthetically fulfilling one. Some of the best reggae has appeared under the Island Records label, and some of the worst has as well. Nonetheless, Island gave Jamaica its biggest international star—Bob Marley—and Jamaica gave Island the music that became the bedrock of its business.

Boogie in My Bones

The story of Island, like the story of reggae, begins with ska. Ska developed in the late fifties, a Jamaican take on American R&B and jump blues music. At the time, of course, Jamaica was still a colony of the British Empire, and the development of ska—a particularly Jamaican music—dovetailed with the stirring of Jamaican nationalism that would find a political reality when the island gained its independence in 1962. It’s somewhat ironic, then, that many of the earliest ska recordings would be distributed by a Jamaican-born Englishman, Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records.

After attending high school in England, Blackwell returned to Jamaica to work for the English Governor of the island. It was a curious occupation for the man whose financial destiny would be buoyed by the anti-colonial anthems of Bob Marley, but it wasn’t long-lived, either. Blackwell left his post when one governor was switched for another, and took to the street hustle: trading real estate and selling this and that, and recording the music of the local sound systems, the nascent sounds of ska.

Blackwell’s first record came in 1959. The newly christened Island Records released an understated ska number by Laurel Aitken called “Boogie in My Bones,” which a careless ear could mistake for an American R&B cut. The song is based on a basic blues chord progression, and Aitken sings in an affected American accent. In fact, it’s only the rhythm guitar line that has the familiar offbeat syncopation that we associate today with ska. In 1959, Jamaican music, like the Jamaican state, was still dominated by a foreign influence.

Listen to “Boogie in My Bones” by Laurel Aitken

Blackwell only released a handful of records while living in Jamaica. He moved Island to London in 1962, coincidentally or not, the year of Jamaican independence. But his time on the island allowed him to form crucial friendships with musicians like Ernest Ranglin, a jazz guitarist whom some historians credit for inventing ska’s distinctive, choppy guitar skank. Ranglin was one of the greatest session musicians in the early decades of Jamaican music. His guitar sound would be at the heart of many of the Island’s earliest successes, even as the record company moved a half a world away.

Once in England, Blackwell increased Island’s output exponentially, releasing hundreds of records on several subsidiaries. His main audience was the booming population of Jamaican immigrants living in London, but he also diversified the label to capture other ears, establishing a small duchy of sub-labels specializing in ska, calypso, and American R&B reissues. It was the beginnings of the complicated maze of subsidiaries that Island would continue to build throughout its history.

For the next two years, Blackwell toiled without much success, earning only modest sales. He finally hit pay dirt in 1964, when he asked Ranglin to arrange the American standard “My Boy Lollipop” for the young Jamaican singer Millie Small. The result is a riotous pop ska rave-up featuring horn stabs, a harmonica solo, and Small’s eerily childlike voicing. It would top the British charts and reach number two in the United States, putting ska—and Island records—on the international radar for the first time.

Listen to “My Boy Lollipop” by Millie Small

Bubblegum ska may have paid the bills, but Island’s catalogue included much more esoteric fare. Religious music, like Desmond Dekker’s “Mount Zion” or Jimmy Cliff’s “King of Kings,” had wide popularity among Jamaicans—one of the statistically most devout populations in the world. The Israelites’ Exodus from Egyptian slavery—the theme of songs as diverse as Dekker’s rocksteady number “The Israelites” and Ranglin’s mind-blowing guitar instrumental “Exodus”—proved especially poignant.

Other records in Island’s discography reflected ska’s darker side: the world of rude boy gangs. Alton Ellis’s classic “Dance Crasher,” for instance, portrays a sound system operator who begs a rude boy to reconsider breaking up his dance party—a job that rude boys were often paid to do by rival sound systems. Ska also had its frivolous side—ska musicians loved to cover television and movie themes. Carlos Malcolm’s “Bonanza Ska” is a particularly frenetic example.

Listen to “Mount Zion” by Desmond Dekker and the Aces

The Harder They Come

Ska would never have become reggae without two crucial developments. The first was religious. In 1966, Egyptian emperor Hailie Selassie visited Jamaica. Selassie was revered as an incarnation of God by Rastafari, and his visit brought legitimacy to the previously underground religious movement and, in turn, its music.

The second was technical. Rastafari musicians like Lee “Scratch” Perry started slowing down the beat of ska. Perry’s 1968 track “People Funny Boy,” widely regarded as one of the earliest reggae songs, placed a greater emphasis on the offbeat rhythms that ska had inherited from the Nyahbingi drumming of Rastafari musicians. Reggae tunes abandoned the breakneck key changes and chordal acrobatics of ska and focussed instead on developing deeply hypnotic rhythms.

When artists started turning out reggae by the reel, Island was there to capitalize on the trend. Blackwell and his friend Lee Gopthal started Trojan Records to subsidize Island’s reggae output. The relationship between the labels would soon sour, but not before Trojan released many of the biggest tracks in the early days of reggae.

Island also financed a reggae movie, The Harder They Come. Starring Jimmy Cliff as a reggae singer-turned drug dealer, it offered a sympathetic glimpse at the compromises that poor, disadvantaged strivers had to make in order to get by in the violent world of the Jamaican ghetto. Combining the stylistic elements of American blaxploitation films with an insider’s view of the distinctly Jamaican worlds of reggae music, Rastafari, and marijuana smuggling, the film became a cult hit and one of the vectors that spread reggae beyond the island into the consciousness of the young and hip in the UK and United States. Its soundtrack, featuring reggae and proto-reggae classics like Cliff’s “The Harder They Come” and Toots and the Maytal’s “Pressure Drop,” remains one of Island’s key contributions to the reception of the sound overseas.

After an early initial success, reggae’s sales began to flag behind Island’s other releases. Blackwell spread into the rock market, releasing landmark records by Jethro Tull and King Crimson. The label’s core audience was shifting from Jamaican immigrants and British mods toward sophisticated rock fans who liked their music heady and weird. Chris Blackwell was determined to find a crossover act who could unite the two audiences in album sales, if not class solidarity. What he found was Bob Marley.

Listen to “People Funny Boy” by Lee “Scratch” Perry
Listen to “The Harder They Come” by Jimmy Cliff

Catch a Fire

Before most of the world had heard his name, Bob Marley had already recorded three of the finest reggae albums ever committed to wax. Marley and his co-songwriter Peter Tosh had talent for harmonizing vocals over basic chordal arrangements, which made their music prime fodder for Lee “Scratch” Perry’s spaced-out production. Marley’s Wailers and Perry worked together from 1969, when Soul Rebel was recorded, until 1973, when Chris Blackwell swiped the band out from under the Jamaican producer. What happened next would change reggae forever.

The Wailers recorded their first album for Island, Catch a Fire, in a Jamaican studio in 1973. The band didn’t do anything differently than they had with Perry—although the absence of the short man and his esoteric musings may have added some clarity in the recording booth. But when Blackwell received the master tapes in the UK, he had his own ideas about what it should sound like.

Determined to get his crossover act, Blackwell hired session musicians to add new rhythm guitar parts and organ, electric piano, clavinet, and synthesizer overdubs. The result was reggae made to resemble rock music. Blackwell’s production and Tosh and Marley’s post-colonial politics blended to become the perfect rebellion cocktail for young revolutionaries in Britain and the United States. Catch a Fire only peaked at 171 on the Billboard charts, but it was the moment when world music was born and reggae first went worldwide in a substantial way.

You can get an idea of how Blackwell changed the Wailers by listening to two tracks side-by-side. “Mr. Brown,” recorded during Lee Perry’s Soul Revolution sessions, is vintage Wailers. Sticky and uncluttered, it’s a three chord vamp with an organ droning on the low-end and Marley’s vocals mixed front and center. “Duppy Conqueror,” from Island’s 1973 release Burnin’, might share the same chord progression and rhythm of “Mr. Brown,” but it sounds like a completely different song. The production is slick and fussy, with an emphasis on the midrange. Marley’s vocals are mixed on top of everything else and embellished with overdubs. Both tracks are masterpieces, in their own right, but it’s easy to see which one might sell more copies.

The commercial success of the Wailers and the pressure Blackwell applied to make them global superstars tore the group apart. By 1974, Tosh and Bunny Wailer had left to start solo careers, and Marley was left as the major creative talent. The music suffered as a result. Natty Dread, Marley’s first album without the core Wailers, was packed with brilliant moments, but it began an artistic decline that would continue until Marley’s death, in 1981. The tight harmonies of the early songs would be replaced by baroque arrangements, the slow and slack rhythms would become midtempo and mediocre, and Marley’s lyrics would retreat from clever protest to bland autobiography and broadly sketched theology.

It’s easy, from a distance, to dismiss Marley’s later work, but his albums had an undeniable importance for millions of people as the seventies wound to a close. Never mind the hippies; Marley’s music has inspired oppressed people the world over. Blackwell won his gambit; Island Records had its crossover superstar. Bob Marley, the dreadlocked revolutionary, made the label rich.

Listen to “Mr. Brown” by Bob Marley w/Lee “Scratch” Perry
Listen to “Duppy Conqueror” by The Wailers

Police and Thieves

But whatever happened to Lee “Scratch” Perry? It turns out that Island Records had plans for him, too. Perry spent the early part of the seventies playing the role of hermit savant, releasing oddball dub experiments with titles like Enter the Dragon and Super Ape. So, it surprised reggae fans when Blackwell tapped him to helm a trio of albums in 1976 that would become part of the core foundation of roots reggae for decades to come.

The three albums, Max Romeo’s War Ina Babylon, Junior Murvin’s Police and Thieves, and the Heptones’ Party Time, share as a backdrop the horrific political violence that marred Jamaica’s 1976 national elections. Gangs affiliated with the Jamaica Labour Party and the People’s National Party murdered each other in the street for the first time, sparking decades of political bloodshed. It was easy to think that the world was coming to an end, a perception that lingers with each of the three albums like a shadow.

In contrast with the slick, commercial releases that Blackwell cooked up for Bob Marley, Perry’s productions were skeletal, a kinky spine of dread rhythms. Perry’s preference for the one drop—the syncopated reggae rhythm with the emphasis on the third beat—subordinated other concerns. The rhythm was the thing. Perry mixed embellishments like güiro scratches, stray guitar licks, flute, and even vocal harmonies mostly to emphasis the rhythm. It was a seemingly chaotic approach that nonetheless yielded a satisfyingly spare result.

If it weren’t enough that Perry and Blackwell had a notoriously difficult working relationship, Perry ended 1976 gripped by a multitude of personal problems. He was drinking heavily, smoking bushels of marijuana, and, thanks to the influence of a particularly nasty sect of Rastafari, completely paranoid. Island turned down his 1977 masterpiece Heart of the Congos, which effectively ended his tenure at the label.

Listen to “Police and Thieves” by Junior Murvin
Listen to “War Ina Babylon” by Max Romeo

Sly and Robbie

In the years after Lee Perry had been shown the door, Island turned to a new production duo to churn out its reggae product. Drummer Sly Dunbar and bassist Robbie Shakespeare were much easier to work with than the Perry, the recluse, and their propulsive rhythmic style—known as “rockers”—had more commercial appeal than Perry’s one drop. From 1976 on, Sly and Robbie would record literally thousands of tracks, and their ubiquity would ensure that their names would forever be stamped on the ensuing era of reggae music. They were so prolific that Blackwell hired them to staff his Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas, which turned out rock and disco hits for American and British recording artists.

Among Sly and Robbie’s triumphs for Island, few remain as classic as their collaborations with Black Uhuru. Beginning with 1980’s Sinsemilla, Sly and Robbie added their tight, stripped down rhythmic back-end to the vocal trio’s roots harmonies. At the time, Island certainly hoped that the collaboration would take the place of the ailing Bob Marley on the world’s reggae stage, but, despite artistic triumphs like “World is Africa,” “Sinsemilla,” “Sponji Reggae,” and “Shine Eyed Gal,” Black Uhuru never managed more than modest sales.

Sly and Robbie would be the bright spot on Island’s otherwise dull roster of reggae musicians for the rest of the 80s, producing fantastic music for the likes of Ini Kamoze and Sugar Minott. As the label struggled and failed to find the next Bob Marley from among a slew of reggae and other “world” musicians, it would also release a steady stream of pop reggae dreck from sub par outfits like Third World.

When Sly and Robbie released the “Bam Bam”/”Murder She Wrote” rhythm in the early 90s, it was almost like the label’s swan song. The gravitational center of reggae had moved back to the Western Hemisphere. New labels like New York-based VP Records and Kingston-based Penthouse Records churned out the electronic rhythms that ruled the dancehall. Island was left to cash the checks that U2 was writing.

Listen to “World is Africa” by Black Uhuru

Welcome to Jamrock

That’s not quite the end of the story. In 2005, Tuff Gong, the Island subsidiary started by Bob Marley, released Welcome to Jamrock, the Gold record break-out for Marley’s son, Damian. The title track topped Jamaican charts for a solid year, and the cut, which mixes a melodic vocal sample from Ini Kamoze with Marley’s raggamuffin chat, is still a dancehall staple. Damian’s brother Stephen, who co-produced the album, followed suit with the 2007 Tuff Gong release Mind Control, which yielded the brilliant single “Traffic Jam.” It was Bob Marley who built Island’s financial empire, and it might be his kids who keep the label relevant in reggae’s fifth decade.

Editor’s Note: Help celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Island Records . Enter to win a 50-CD set of the Top 50 Island Records releases or an Island Prize Package with CDs, vinyl albums, t-shirts, and other goodies by (1) playing the Island or Bob Marley editions of the “Scrumbler” puzzle game, (2) and creating top-5 music lists tied to Island and Bob Marley’s catalog. Join the fun!

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