{"id":113508,"date":"2015-03-14T15:42:13","date_gmt":"2015-03-14T20:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kingston12.net\/?p=113508"},"modified":"2022-11-22T16:48:17","modified_gmt":"2022-11-22T21:48:17","slug":"giants-behind-the-music-chris-blackwell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kingston12.net\/2020\/2015\/03\/14\/giants-behind-the-music-chris-blackwell\/","title":{"rendered":"Giants Behind the Music: Chris Blackwell"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chris Blackwell<\/strong> (born Christopher Percy Gordon Blackwell) was born in Westminster, London<\/em>. His father \u2013Joseph Blackwell<\/strong> was an Englishman who came to Jamaica as a major in the Jamaican Regiment of the British army. His mother \u2013 Blanche Lindo<\/strong> was a Jamaican Jew of Costa Rican<\/em> descent. Chris came from a family of wealth \u2013 his father was related to the founders of Crosse & Blackwell<\/strong>, a British food processing and canning company. His mother belonged to one of Jamaica\u2019s famous sugar plantation lines who were the original owners of Appleton Rum<\/strong> and one of the \u201c21 families that is said to have controlled” the island in the 20th century.<\/p>\n

Chris spent his childhood in Jamaica and was sent to Britain to continue his education at Harrow School. At the end of high school he opted to return to Jamaica instead of attending college. He became an aid to the Governor and later decided to step out on his own. \u00a0At first he entered the real estate business, and later distribution and management of jukeboxes. This later project brought him in direct contact with both ordinary Jamaicans and the music business. It is rumored that Chris\u2019s introduction to \u201cdeep roots music\u201d was quite accidental. \u00a0Author Brent Hageman<\/strong> (2005) noted that Chris was \u201csailing off the Hellshire Beach<\/em> in 1958 when his boat ran aground on a coral reef. The twenty one-year-old swam to the coast and attempted to find help along the shore in searing temperatures. \u00a0Collapsing on the beach, Blackwell was\u00a0said to have been\u00a0rescued by Rasta fishermen who tended his wounds and restored him back to health with traditional Ital food. Hageman<\/strong> noted that this experience gave Blackwell a spiritual introduction to Rastafarianism<\/em> and was a key to his connection to the culture and its music.\u201d
\nIn 1958, at the young are of 22, Blackwell formed Island Records with an initial inheritance of $10,000. \u00a0His initial business partner was Jamaican radio personality \u2013 Graeme Goodall<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Their first release was an instrumental\/vocal album by a Bermudian<\/em> artist name Lance Hayward<\/strong>. A year later Chris started recording Jamaican popular music with artist like Laurel Aitkens<\/strong> \u2013 producing the island\u2019s first locally produced hit \u2013 \u201cBoogie in my Bones\u201d, baked with \u201cLittle Sheila\u201d. In 1962 Chris produced 26 singles and two albums. At the end of that year he returned to England in search of better production facilities and a larger market. Among the master tapes that Chris recorded that year and took to England was one by a fifteen-year-old Jamaican female singer name Millie Small<\/strong>. In 1964 he brought her over to England to record a Ska version of Barbie Gaye<\/strong> 1956 hit \u2013 \u201cMy Boy Lollypop\u201d. The rest is history as that song went straight to number one as the very first Jamaican-linked song to make it to the top of the British charts. This marked the beginning of Island Records<\/strong> as the first great independent label.<\/p>\n

Chris later joined forces with Stanley Borden<\/strong> of RKO Entertainment<\/em> \u2013 producing some of the greatest artists of our time \u2013 artists that has impacted our lives and the music world in ways that can hardly be measured. Among them \u2013 Bob Marley, Grace Jones, U2, Steve Winwood and the Spencer Davis Group, Lake and Palmer, Jethro Tull, Cat Stevens, Sly & Robbie, Robert Palmer, Jimmy Cliff, Ike & Tina Turner, Third World, Burning Spear, Black Uhuru, Melissa Etheridge<\/strong> and African superstars Salif Keita, Baaba Maal, King Sunny Ade<\/strong> and Angelique Kidjo<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Blackwell sold his stake in Island in 1989 and eventually resigning from the company in 1997. \u00a0He went on to form Palm Pictures<\/strong>, a media entertainment company with music, film and DVD releases. In the late 1990s, Blackwell merged Palm Pictures with Rykodisc<\/strong> to form RykoPalm<\/strong>, a new operation. That same year he purchased Netherlands-based conglomerate PolyGram<\/strong>. He stayed on for a few years to supervise the companies that operated under the Island label.<\/p>\n

Simultaneously, in the early \u201990s, Blackwell created Island Outpost<\/strong> a South Beach based hotels and resorts company that purchased and managed hotels such as the Marlin Hotel<\/strong> in South Beach, Miami and Jamaica\u2019s Strawberry Hill<\/strong> (1992), followed closely by Bahamian Pink Sands<\/strong> and Compass Point<\/strong> and The Caves<\/strong>, Jake\u2019s<\/strong> and Golden Eye<\/strong>, in Oracabessa, Jamaica<\/em>.\u00a0Chris currently lives in Jamaica and has made the island his base of operation for several companies. These include multiple hotel properties \u2013 Golden Eye, Strawberry Hill in St Andrew, and the Caves in Negril, Jamaica.\u00a0In recent years he has had some difficulty staying away from his family\u2019s legacy and in 2009 he introduced his own brand of fine rum \u201cBlackwell Black Gold\u201d to the international market.<\/p>\n

In April 2009, the UK magazine Music Week<\/strong> named Blackwell the most influential figure in the last 50 years of the British music industry. When he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2001, they described him as the \u201csingle person most responsible for turning the world on to reggae music\u201d. \u00a0Although others like Johnny Nash<\/strong> and Paul Simon<\/strong>\u00a0have certainly played a part in introducing reggae music to the US, Chris certainly stands out as the individual who took reggae around the world. \u00a0Today at the ripe “young” age of late seventies – when most people who have made such significant contributions to our lives are ready to retire, he spends most of his time with his favorite philanthropic organizations. \u00a0Among them \u2013 the Island ACTS<\/strong>, the Oracabessa Foundation<\/strong>, the Mary Vinson Blackwell Foundation<\/strong> (established in honor of his late wife to whom he was married from 1998 till 2009), and the Jamaican Conservation Trust<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chris Blackwell (born Christopher Percy Gordon Blackwell) was born in Westminster, London. His father \u2013Joseph Blackwell was an Englishman who came to Jamaica as a major in the Jamaican Regiment of the British army. His mother \u2013 Blanche Lindo was a Jamaican Jew of Costa Rican descent. Chris came from…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":113569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[173,84,86,198,100,214,148],"tags":[259,267,278,290,305,382,410,420,423,451,459,461,510,540],"class_list":["post-113508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-caribbean-music","category-gbtm","category-gbm","category-island-records","category-labels","category-studio-1","category-studios","tag-appleton-rum","tag-barbie-gaye","tag-blanche-lindo","tag-brent-hageman","tag-chris-blackwell","tag-graeme-goodall","tag-joseph-blackwell","tag-kingston12","tag-lance-hayward","tag-millie-small","tag-music-giants","tag-my-boy-lollypop","tag-reggae-2","tag-ska"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kingston12.net\/2020\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Chris-Blackwell-574-1.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":115663,"url":"https:\/\/kingston12.net\/2020\/2026\/01\/28\/the-echo-in-the-machine-how-ai-redefined-the-music-industry\/","url_meta":{"origin":113508,"position":0},"title":"The Echo in the Machine: How AI Redefined the Music Industry","author":"Sydney","date":"January 28, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"For decades, the music industry has navigated digital disruptions\u2014from the MP3, the shift away from large production studios to the streaming revolution. However, 2025 has brought a new evolution: Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI is no longer a futuristic concept. It has become a foundational element of the music industry,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technology"","block_context":{"text":"Technology","link":"https:\/\/kingston12.net\/2020\/category\/articles\/technology-articles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kingston12.net\/2020\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/AI-Music-2.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kingston12.net\/2020\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/AI-Music-2.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kingston12.net\/2020\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/AI-Music-2.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kingston12.net\/2020\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/AI-Music-2.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kingston12.net\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kingston12.net\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kingston12.net\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kingston12.net\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kingston12.net\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113508"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kingston12.net\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":114977,"href":"https:\/\/kingston12.net\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113508\/revisions\/114977"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kingston12.net\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kingston12.net\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kingston12.net\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kingston12.net\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}