Chris Blackwell, Steve Winwood, Fairport Members Among Contributors To ‘Island Book Of Records’
The 12-inch vinyl-sized book covers every album released in the first decade of the storied label.
The lavishly illustrated The Island Book of Records (1959-68) will be published by Manchester University Press on October 16 in the U.K. and November 28 in the U.S. The 12-inch vinyl-sized book is edited by Neil Storey, former U.K. head of press for the esteemed label, and covers every album from Island’s inception by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica in 1959 to the end of 1968. Volume 2 (1969–1970) is planned for publication by MUP next year.
Publicity describes the 392-page volume, which is packed with archival treasures, as an “unparalleled resource for those seeking an immersive trip back to a period when music ignited a cultural renaissance.” Each album release is displayed via labels, booklets, die-cut covers, and foreign editions, and LPs that were scheduled but ultimately unreleased are also featured.
The book also contains a 20-plus page illustrated discography of 45s and EPs; appendices with details of subsidiary label LP releases; such artefacts as gig adverts, release flyers, magazine covers, and concert tickets; and Island’s adverts for their releases, many of which came to be regarded as art in their own right. Some 15 years in the making, it has been designed by Jayne Gould, former creative director of Associated Newspapers, design director for News Corp. and art director at Tatler.
New and contemporaneous interviews are featured with musicians, designers, photographers, producers, engineers, managers, and record company personnel. There are exclusive interviews with Blackwell himself, photographers Dick Polak, John Benton-Harris, Barrie Wentzell, and Gered Mankowitz; graphic artists John Hurford and Burt Goldblatt; musicians Owen Gray, Ernest Ranglin, Muff Winwood, Jess Roden, Fairport Convention’s Dave Pegg and Simon Nicol, Spooky Tooth’s Mike Harrison, Kellie and Luther Grosvenor, Patrick Campbell-Lyons, Don Letts, and Steve Winwood; former Island staff members David Betteridge, Ann Sullivan, Rob Bell, Penny Massot, John Glover, Tom Hayes, Tim Clark, and John Knowles; studio engineers Phill Brown, Brian Humphries and John Wood; producer-managers Joe Boyd and Sandy Roberton.
These are complemented by period quotes from Ian Anderson, Terry Ellis, Barbara Lynn, Enid Cumberland and Linton Kwesi Johnson, and the late Guy Stevens, Sandy Denny, Elmore James, John Martyn, Lee Gopthal, Chris Wood, Byron Lee, Count Prince Miller, Millie Small, the Rt. Hon. Edward Seaga, and Jim Capaldi.
Pre-order The Island Book of Records (1959-68).
