I was island EVP/General Manger for Chris for two years and while the comments talk about his A&R expertise and his tremendous ability to foresee the way music was going, I’ll write about Chris as a label chief. He gave the staff extraordinary freedom to market and promote, never interfering or second-guessing what we did. I never had such freedom at any major labels where I was worked. This led to successes with U2, Melissa Etheridge, Anthrax and others. If he trusted you and your ability, you were home free.

Bill Berger

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I worked for CB (as he was known to us) when I was 20. He gave me my first proper industry job – The University of CB as I call it.

Obsessed by Island Records & the man who had signed so many artists I heard and loved growing up, I had travelled to NY – crashing on the sofa of a friend – expressly to try and meet & work for Chris.

Like so many people who have worked for, or with Chris, we have numerous anecdotes that shaped the executives and people we are today – I have literally dozens & I owe him so much.

What always struck me about Chris – and indeed this is a trait of almost every successful individual I have ever encountered  – was his remarkable and indefatigable curiosity. What did you do at the weekend? Where did you go out? What records were getting a reaction? Who produced it? What’s the best film you’ve seen in the last week? Who directed and who wrote it?

Chris is a visionary entrepreneur who is able to connect with and enable creatives in a way that is unsurpassed – always with dignity and class. Never compromising integrity. His instincts are ungodly and when he’s got a plan…. get with it, or get the fuck out the way!

I asked Chris on a number of occasions when I was with him why he hadn’t written a book – he shrugged it off. It wasn’t his style.

It was always about the artists and their art, and I guess the idea of a book felt incongruous. But I’m so glad he finally did it – his story is important. I can’t wait to read it.
Legend.

Will Bloomfield

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Reading the other folks’ Chris Blackwell stories, I recalled that I have a few of my own. First one was when I was doing a cover story on him for Gavin. He’s an easy interview. You just go down the list of all the amazing artists he worked with, and just check off the list. When we got to Marianne Faithful, he asked if I could hold one a few seconds, he had to take a quick call. I was on hold for 45 minutes, and when he popped back on the line, he dove right into a Marianne story. He didn’t miss a beat. When I got to Bob Marley, I told him that I’d seen the Wailers at the Boarding House in SF, July 4th, 1975. He remembered one amazing thing about that tour, that the band would come out and Bob with sing with his back to the audience and would only turn around once the band was cooking. Sure enough, he was right! When I got to asking about Steve Winwood, he told me nicely that he just couldn’t reply. Winwood had left the label, and he frankly told me he was unable to talk about it. We did a few events with him for Gavin, and he was always elegantly informal. A friend of mine, drummer David Beal who I met through another great drummer, Michael Shrieve, ended up working with Chris on some early music film DVD projects in New York. So when David hit San Francisco, he gave me a call, asking if I wanted to meet up for a drink. We met at a little dive bar in the Mission, and there sat fucking Chris Blackwell, as informal as ever, the most under-dressed dude in the room, flip flops, etc. I recall he wore a dark hoodie with Havana written across the front. I was amused that the other folks in the bar, mostly kids, probably had no idea they were in the midst of such greatness. When I left Gavin to go to a startup, we talked again…can’t remember the circumstances. But I do remember him asking me if I knew of any hotels for sale. As a matter of fact, I told him that the grand old Claremont Hotel in Berkeley was said to be on the block. I wonder if he checked into it. I still have his email address. I wonder if it’s still valid…

Kent Zimmerman

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when I was doing A & R for colorblind A&M in the early 90s , we were trying to sign Tracy Bonham.  At her showcase at the knitting factory in ny ny,  nearly everybody was there

Al Cafaro , showed up last minute  wearing a big black cowboy hat.  It was already too late. Chris had already given Tracy a beautiful 50s Gretsch guitar as a party favor.  The rest is history .  she went on to have her big hit “mother mother “ shortly Thereafter.

Anthony J. Resta

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Hi Bob — I never met Chris and have no stories to add, except these two:  when I worked at CBS Records during the 1970’s, in the Epic Records group, we shared the 13th floor of Black Rock with CBS Records International.  CBS Records International distributed Island in parts of the world and Island releases were always available if you knew who to ask from the International promotion and PR staff.  Those Jamaican albums were wonderful.  U-Roy, Mighty Diamonds, I-Roy, in particular, truly fueled my love for the music.

We got Stanley Clark on the bill when Bob Marley & the Wailers played Madison Square Garden.  I still say that was the greatest show I have ever had the pleasure of attending.  The entire social and ethnic fabric of New York together that night in the Garden, from babes in arms to the elderly, grandmas and grandpas, all swaying together in harmony to Marley.  It was an absolutely magical evening.

Jim Charne

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Chris was the first record company person I met. It was 1969 and he along with legendary manager John Gaydon (King Crimson, Roxy Music and other British greats ) came to Beverly Hills mansion I shared with my boss Jerry Goldstein. Chris had a cool and laid back style. He was with his elegant black girl friend named Esther. We all have great memories, the lists of artists he discovered and how great a ‘record man’ he is.

I love his style… I remember his desk always had a bowl of pistachios, fresh fruit and a huge poster behind him  that said in enormous letters..”WHEN YOU DON’T PROMOTE A TERRIBLE THING HAPPENS’, and in tiny type below was the word ’nothing’. Cool running, jeans, black leather motorcycle jacket, and sandals. Always gracious  and interested in music. I have kept in touch over the years and will be sending my edition to Jamaica for his signature.

Bruce Garfield

Haven’t read the book, but will soon. I know many of the stories and made a few with the legend himself albeit briefly, but as much as anyone I’ve encountered on my music journey, Chris Blackwell was the coolest,  and shrewdest I was lucky enough to learn from and smoke many a phat joints with. (How many people can say Chris picked them up in a helicopter in Kingston, flew to his hotel home at Golden Eye and then jumped on individual jet skis and raced him around the island? I did!)  Chris was James Bond with a spliff sans the gun.

I met Chris in 1988 through Marty Schwartz, who was working at Island Pictures. He had hired my partner Matt Dike to DJ a party he was throwing for a movie premiere. Matt had told Marty about a label he was starting and Marty was eager to please Chris (as anyone who worked for Chris would know could lead to bigger and better things) and set up a meeting for us to meet him. We had been shopping a tape of rappers we were producing at the time for our one year old indie label Delicious Vinyl. We had already self distributed  12” records on Tone Loc, Young MC, Mellow Man Ace and Def Jef and was hoping it was just a matter of time we would start getting some interest from majors, as we were running low on money and muscle, but getting lots of airplay on KDAY here in LA.

Well thanks to Marty, Chris took a meeting with us and as much as he may have liked what he heard, I got the impression he saw something in us that may have reminded him of starting Island 28 yrs earlier. He respected the fact we were doing it all ourselves, and he also knew hip hop was here to stay, as he had just had a taste of it with Eric B and Rakim on his 4th and Broadway label.

Anyway, long story short, he gave us a 50k advance, which was 10 times what we started the label with and a 16 point royalty. I remember sitting with him in his backyard above the Chateau Marmont, 26 yrs old, wet behind the ears, high on his weed, with a lawyer I had hired from the yellow pages, negotiating with him on things I knew nothing about regarding packaging deductions and 75% on sales of CD’s and shit that would cost us a ton of bread when we delivered our first album Tone Loc “Loc’ed After Dark”.  Who knew? Chris knew.  lol.

But, he also was quick to let us renegotiate that horrible deal less than a year later, (with our new lawyer, the great Peter Paterno) before we dropped our second album, Young MC’s “Stone Cold Rhymin”.  I remember telling him I wish I knew then what I knew now, and he just laughed. It was like, welcome to the record business kid.

Being in biz with Chris as we were starting to have success just made the process so much easier for a couple of young cocky DJ’s turned hip hop producers who thought are shit didn’t stink. He spoke our language and was as excited about music as we were. How lucky were we? We didn’t even know at the time.

He would put us up at the legendary Essex House in NYC, which I only knew about through SNL commercials as a kid. Lol. (He had a fly penthouse there ) We had access to his houses for videos and anyone on the Island roster for features or collaborations. We got to work with the legendary Etta James for a feature on the Def Jef underground classic “Dropping Rhymes on Drums” He flew us to DC to work and produce tracks with our Go Go idols, Trouble Funk. He basically gave us the keys to his castle so we could flex and make a name for our label. Who does that these days?

Unfortunately, Camelot with Blackwell ended as quickly as it started. Unbeknownst to us, he was about to sell Island to Polygram for like 300 million bucks.

We went from being the young hot label at Island, working with the great Chris Blackwell as our boss to being thrown into a corporate shit show of labels consolidated under an umbrella called PLG.  Talk about a buzz kill. I won’t go into that tragedy, but let’s just say it was never the same again. Yes, records were made and sold, but it became a lot harder, much more cut throat, and a lot less fun.

I always wonder what would have happened if we could have had a 10 year run with Chris instead of those 18 months.  Who knows, but I’m grateful I got to know the man and learn from him and chase his wake on that jet ski going full throttle!

Mike Ross
Delicious Vinyl