The Islander: My Life in Music and Beyond

Product Information

MILLIE SMALL (MUSICAL ARTIST): (Singing) My boy Lollipop, you make my heart go giddyup. You are as sweet as candy. You're my sugar dandy. Oh, my boy Lollipop, never ever leave me because it would grieve me. My heart, she told me so. I love you. I love you. I love you so. But I don't want you to know. I need you. I need you. I need you so. And I'll never let you go. My boy Lollipop, you make my heart go giddyup. You set the world on fire. You are my one desire. Oh, you're my Lollipop.

But this was a different Chris, a svengali, like Clive, and he realized that was a fool’s errand, better to focus on the music than the image, because the hit singles business was always an uphill climb.

BOB MARLEY (MUSICAL ARTIST): (Singing) Get up, stand up. Stand up for your right. Get up, stand up. Stand up for your right. Get up, stand up. GROSS: So "Joshua Tree" was a huge success. U2 was a huge success. But the success kind of led to some financial problem indirectly for Island Records because you had taken some money and invested it in your film company, and then you ended up owing U2 an enormous amount of money in royalties 'cause their music was doing so well. So it's like an example in the music industry or in the entertainment industry how success can sometimes cause problems (laughter) for the label. So how did you end up working that out? 'Cause you didn't have the money to pay the royalties. When my mother was two, her father relocated the family to Jamaica, where the Lindo brothers developed 8,000 acres of land into sugarcane fields. This inspired them to buy the rum manufacturers Appleton Estate and J. Wray & Nephew, making the Lindos the world’s first family of rum. Wray & Nephew was run by my maternal grandfather, Percy Lindo, the youngest of the eight brothers. Percy is my middle name. But then in 1979 it all started to crumble, but MTV and CDs caused a renaissance with untold riches, music was raining dough. You didn’t seek endorsements, you didn’t have to! You were making so much money! However, it is instead an adequate book. Not just because it breaks my rule of music autobiographies/biographies: Never mention Killing Joke, because they are more intriguing than 99% of bands and people will want to read about them instead of you.

TOM TOM CLUB (MUSICAL GROUP): What you going to do when you get out of jail? I'm going to have some fun. What do you consider fun? Fun, natural fun. So we've been talking mostly about the Jamaican music that you produced. But after moving to England, you produced a lot of British performers, and one of the groups you produced was U2. And you were unimpressed with them the first time you heard them on record - on a tape, and then you heard them in person and signed them. What made you so enthusiastic after being not so much? He describes Jamaica as a ‘blessed island’, and a huge source of inspiration. ‘It has everything going for it, from agriculture to beaches and the mountains, but most of all, the people are really extraordinary. They have had tough times in their lives, but they are great people. I love Jamaica. This country is definitely the place I love most in the world.’If you want to know about Bob there are many better tomes, not least Marlon James' History of Seven Killings . GROSS: You know, in your book, you write that one of the reasons why you left Jamaica and went to England is that when Jamaica was getting its independence, you felt like you were on the wrong side of history in Jamaica. And, you know, your parents - or your mother's family had a banana plantation in Jamaica. So I'm wondering what it was like for you to work with artists. How did you bridge that gap? Did they see you as, you know, representing the colonizers?