Island Records is a British-Jamaican 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 in particular having exerted a major influence on the progressive music scene in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s.
David Nesta "Ziggy" Marley is a Jamaican musician and philanthropist. He is the son of reggae icon Bob Marley and Rita Marley. He led the family band Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers, with whom he released eight studio albums. He has also released seven solo albums.
Benjamin Chase Harper is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Harper plays an eclectic mix of blues, folk, soul, reggae, and rock music and is known for his guitar-playing skills, vocals, live performances, and activism. He has released twelve regular studio albums, mostly through Virgin Records and has toured internationally.
"Punky Reggae Party" is a song by Bob Marley, recorded and released in 1977. Not appearing on any studio album, it was released in 1977 as a 12-inch single in Jamaica only on the Tuff Gong and Black Art labels, as a b-side to the "Jamming" single on the Island label in some countries and was later released as a live single on Babylon by Bus. Subsequently, it appeared on a number of compilations and "Best of" albums as well as the Deluxe Edition of Exodus and the 2002 CD reissue of Legend. The two versions of the song on the Jamaican 12-inch single were both featured on disc 2 of the Deluxe Edition of Exodus. The version featured on the 2002 CD reissue of Legend is the b-side version from the "Jamming" 12-inch single. There is also a version of the song released as a b-side on the "Jamming" 7-inch single which is much shorter.
Toots and the Maytals, originally called The Maytals, were 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. Frontman Toots Hibbert is considered a Reggae pioneer on a par with Bob Marley. His soulful vocal style has been compared to Otis Redding, and led him to be named by Rolling Stone as one of the 100 Greatest Singers. Their 1968 single "Do the Reggay" was the first song to use the word "reggae", coining the name of the genre and introducing it to a global audience. The Oxford English Dictionary credits Toots and the Maytals in the etymology of the word "Reggae". According to Island Records founder Chris Blackwell "The Maytals were unlike anything else ... sensational, raw and dynamic."
Leslie Kong was an influential Chinese-Jamaican reggae producer.
Lowell "Sly" Fillmore Dunbar is a drummer, best known as one half of the prolific Jamaican rhythm section and reggae production duo Sly and Robbie.
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.
Rachael Yamagata is an American singer-songwriter and pianist from Arlington, Virginia. She began her musical career with the band Bumpus before becoming a solo artist and releasing five EPs and four studio albums. Her songs have appeared on numerous television shows and she has collaborated with Jason Mraz, Rhett Miller, Bright Eyes, Ryan Adams, Toots and the Maytals and Ray Lamontagne.
Tilmann Otto, better known by his stage name Gentleman, is a German reggae musician.
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.
Pressure Cooker is a nine piece reggae/ska/rocksteady band from Boston. The group writes, records, and performs original songs in the styles of 1960s and 1970s Jamaican music. The group formed in 1997.
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 1972 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 peaked at #164 on the Billboard 200 and was voted the eleventh best album of 1975 in the annual Pazz & Jop poll. In 2003, the American version was placed at #378 on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and 380 in a 2012 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.
Carl Harvey is a Jamaican born Canadian guitarist and record producer who recorded as a member of Crack of Dawn and The Aggrovators in the 1970s, and later became guitarist for Toots & the Maytals.
Earl “Paul” Douglas is a Jamaician 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."
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.
Got to Be Tough is a studio album by Jamaican reggae band Toots and the Maytals. It was released through Trojan Jamaica/BMG on August 28, 2020. The album is the first studio release from Toots and the Maytals in over a decade, and the first after an accident, where Toots Hibbert was hit in the head with a glass bottle, causing him to take a break from performing. The lyrical content of the album is described as political, a "wake up call" to instigate unity of the people.
