Island Records is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded in 1959 by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall, and Leslie Kong in Jamaica, and was eventually sold to PolyGram in 1989. Island and A&M Records, another label recently acquired by PolyGram, were both at the time the largest independent record labels in history, with Island having exerted a major influence on the progressive music scene in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s. Island Records operates four international divisions: Island US, Island UK, Island Australia, and Island France. Current key people include Island US president Darcus Beese, OBE and MD Jon Turner. Partially due to its significant legacy, Island remains one of UMG's pre-eminent record labels.
Zak Richard Starkey is an English rock drummer who has performed and recorded with English rock band the Who since 1996. He is also the third drummer to have appeared with English rock band Oasis. In 2020, Starkey toured Brazil with U-Roy as guitarist. Other musicians and bands he has worked with include Johnny Marr, Paul Weller, the Icicle Works, the Waterboys, Bobby Womack, ASAP, the Lightning Seeds, John Entwistle, Sly & Robbie, Toots & The Maytals, Mykal Rose, Freddie McGregor, Big Youth, Jesse Royal, Tanya Stevens, Cecile and Sshh Liguz. Starkey is a son of the Beatles' drummer Ringo Starr.
The Maytals, known from 1972 to 2020 as Toots and the Maytals, are a Jamaican musical group, one of the best known ska and rocksteady vocal groups. The Maytals were formed in the early 1960s and were key figures in popularizing reggae music.
Leslie Kong was an influential Chinese-Jamaican reggae producer.
Christopher Percy Gordon Blackwell is an English businessman and former record producer, and the founder of Island Records, which has been called "one of Britain's great independent labels". According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, to which Blackwell was inducted in 2001, he is "the single person most responsible for turning the world on to reggae music."
Frederick Nathaniel "Toots" Hibbert, was a Jamaican singer and songwriter who was the lead vocalist for the reggae and ska band Toots and the Maytals. A reggae pioneer, he performed for six decades and helped establish some of the fundamentals of reggae music. Hibbert's 1968 song "Do the Reggay" is widely credited as the genesis of the genre name reggae. His band's album True Love won a Grammy Award in 2005.
Marcia Llyneth Griffiths is a Jamaican singer. One reviewer described her by noting "she is known primarily for her strong, smooth-as-mousse love songs and captivating live performances".
Beverley's was a Jamaican record label owned by the Chinese Jamaican record producer Leslie Kong. Beverley's was essential to the development of ska and rocksteady into reggae. The label launched the careers of Jimmy Cliff and Bob Marley, having released Jimmy Cliff's first recording "Dearest Beverley" in 1961 and Bob Marley's early singles "Judge Not" and "One Cup of Coffee" in 1962.
True Love is an album by Toots & the Maytals. It is a collection of their classics re-recorded with guest artists including Willie Nelson, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Trey Anastasio, No Doubt, Ben Harper, Bonnie Raitt, Manu Chao, The Roots, Ryan Adams, Keith Richards, and The Skatalites. The album was produced and conceived by Richard Feldman and released on the V2 label.
Funky Kingston is the name of two albums by Jamaican reggae group Toots and the Maytals. The first was issued in Jamaica and the United Kingdom in 1973 on Dragon Records, a subsidiary label of Island Records, owned by Chris Blackwell. A different album, with the same cover and title, was issued in the United States in 1975 on Mango Records. That album was compiled from three previous Maytals albums by Island Records employee Danny Holloway and peaked at #164 on the Billboard 200. It was also voted the eleventh best album of 1975 in the annual Jazz & Pop poll. In 2003, the American version was placed at number 378 on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, 380 in a 2012 revised list and 344 in a 2020 revised list.
Wayne Jobson, also known as Native Wayne, is a Jamaican record producer of European ancestry. He has worked with such artists as No Doubt, Gregory Isaacs and Toots & the Maytals. He hosts the weekly radio show "Alter Native" every Sunday afternoon on Indie 103.1. He previously hosted a similar radio show, "Reggae Revolution", at Indie's main competitor KROQ-FM. Jobson is also known as a musician. He recorded an album in 1977 produced by Lee 'Scratch' Perry at the Black Ark.
In the Dark is the second international album release by the reggae singing group Toots and the Maytals, issued in Jamaica and in the United Kingdom on Dragon Records, DRLS 5004, a subsidiary label owned by Chris Blackwell. It was released in September 1974.
Family Time is an album by Jamaican musician Ziggy Marley, released in 2009 through the record label Tuff Gong. In 2010, the album earned Marley the Grammy Award for Best Musical Album for Children. A portion of the album's proceeds were donated to Chepstowe Basic School, Port Antonio, Jamaica.
Larry McDonald is a Jamaican percussionist. He was born in Port Maria, Jamaica in 1937. McDonald played congas with Carlos Malcolm's band, Toots and the Maytals and the Count Ossie Band. He plays a wide variety of traditional percussion instruments.
Earl “Paul” Douglas is a Jamaican Grammy Award-winning drummer and percussionist, best known for his work as the drummer, percussionist and bandleader of Toots and the Maytals. His career spans more than five decades as one of reggae's most recorded drummers. Music journalist and reggae historian David Katz wrote, “dependable drummer Paul Douglas played on countless reggae hits."
Reggae Got Soul is an album by the Jamaican reggae group Toots and the Maytals, released in July 1976 by Island Records.
This Is Reggae Music: The Golden Era 1960-1975 is a reggae retrospective anthology issued as a 4-CD box set in 2004 by Trojan Records. The anthology, which was compiled by Colin Escott and Bas Hartong, is arranged in chronological order and features tracks by various artists, starting with mento and ska from the first half of the 1960s, then progressing to the slower rhythms of rocksteady and reggae, which both emerged later in the decade, continuing into the 1970s. Several of the acts featured are Derrick Morgan, Desmond Decker & the Aces, Toots & the Maytals, Jimmy Cliff, and Bob Marley and the Wailers.
Clifton "Jackie" Jackson is a Jamaican bass player, who was an important session musician on ska, rocksteady and reggae records in the 1960s and 1970s, and later a member of Toots and the Maytals.
Pass the Pipe is an album by the Jamaican reggae band Toots and the Maytals. It was released in 1979 on Mango Records.
Toots in Memphis is an album by the Jamaican reggae musician Toots Hibbert. Released in 1988, Toots in Memphis was recorded without the Maytals. The majority of the album's tracks are covers of American R&B songs.
