“I think you need to be aware and see people be open to what can happen and get a feel, get an instinct, I guess. I think I've been blessed with instinct. I mean, I did not do well at school. I passed zero exams. I'm unemployable, but I've been blessed with having instincts.

Miles Davis was the best teacher, always amused when I asked him questions. I was pretty cocky at the time, and I once asked him why he played so many bad notes, unlike Bix Beiderbecke and Louis Armstrong, who always played clean. He didn’t blink. He didn’t bite my head off. ‘Because I try and play what I hear in my head, he said, “not what I know I can already play.” That, to me, was the essence of jazz, trying to get somewhere new and not worrying if you made mistakes as long as you got there in the end. On a tightrope, and wobbling a little, but eventually gliding across that tightrope.

Well, it's really great if you can be involved in doing something which  brings something to people and lifts things. You know, if you can find a way to…when I say find a way, you just get an instinct of something, Oh,   this is going to be fun. That can be great. I'm always looking…I don't know that I'm deliberately looking at things. I think things have happened, and I've seen something or got a feel for something or feel for the person or… I think I've been given a lot of luck.”

Chris Blackwell, an inductee of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, is widely considered responsible for turning the world on to reggae music. As the founder of Island Records, he helped forge the careers of Bob Marley, Cat Stevens, Grace Jones, U2, Roxy Music, among many other high-profile acts, and produced records including Marley’s Catch a Fire and Uprising. Blackwell currently runs Island Outpost, a group of elite resorts in Jamaica, which includes GoldenEye—the former home of author Ian Fleming. He received the A&R Icon Award in recognition of his lasting influence on the music business. He is author, with Paul Morley, of The Islander: My Life in Music and Beyond.

www.islandoutpost.com
www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Islander/Chris-Blackwell/9781982172701
www.islandrecords.com

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