It’s very wonderful for our book to receive this review from Bob Bell.
Why? Because he was there.
And he has complimented Neil on documenting the massive jigsaw that Island Records was during the formative years of 1969-70..Because he was there, Bob contributed greatly to our second volume and I get the idea we’will be seeing and reading more of his Island experiences in our third volume.
Meanwhile……from Bob’s pro music website
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The first volume of ‘The Island Book of Records – 1959-1968’ filled 390 pages and covered the first ten years of Island Records.
Volume 2 fills 432 pages and covers just two years
So what happened?
Obviously rather a lot. And the story of that tumultuous year is right here, laid out from page one to four hundred and thirty-two.
Neil Storey gives us a blow-by-blow account of Island’s meteoric rise from scrappy independent to major contender.
Perhaps the essence of the company’s rise, and appeal lies in this quote from founder Chris Blackwell at the beginning of the book: ‘ Warners did put in an offer for Island sometime in the autumn of 1970. I think CBS and Capitol did as well, even though Island wasn’t really for sale. What made me decide against any of it was when I realized I would have to report to all these boards of directors. I thought it would be more fun to compete against them instead.’
And there, in a nutshell, lay the allure of Island to all the creative musicians and bands that were coming out of the woodwork in those days when musical ferment, heady idealism and counter-culturalism ran rampant. A company that understood the creative process, a company that allowed a band ample studio time to realize a vision, and who went the extra mile to create an advertising campaign that gave a band an identity that enabled them to stand out from the crowd. Plus, of course, to sell a few records.
Artists whose records came out on Island during the period covered by this book include Traffic, Spooky Tooth, Clouds, Bloswyn Pig, Nick Drake, Free, Fairport Convention, Jethro Tull, Mott the Hoople, Quintessence, King Crimson, Cat Stevens, John and Beverley Martin, Bronco, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, If, The Amazing Blondel and a variety of others.
Not a bad line-up.
Mr. Storey gives us a detailed look behind the scenes of each of these releases and illuminates through dozens of interviews how Island’s studios – in a disused church in Notting Hill – came into being, how Guy Stevens basically created Mott the Hoople, how record jackets came together, how certain bands came into being and how others broke up, plus he includes period ads from the weekly musical papers and so much pertinent musical ephemera that one cannot stop oneself from turning the pages.
Island’s earlier emphasis on Jamaican music is naturally missing from this book, as the company had spun off its Jamaican side into Trojan Records, which it still distributed. The Blues and R & B still rate a look in through budget compilations of earlier Sue releases, but the ‘Island Book of Records, Vol. 2’ is the remarkable story of the rise of a record label that both mirrored and shaped the tastes of 1969 through 1970.
At that time it was the ambition of most unsigned bands to appear on Island. This indispensable book explains why..
