Music icon Chris Blackwell: How I met Bob Marley, why I never signed Elton
nypost.comGoldenEye, author Ian Fleming’s famed home where he wrote all of the James Bond novels — now a luxury resort and celebrity hideaway.In fact, before music, Blackwell got his professional start in the travel industry more than four decades ago when he worked as a waterski instructor at Half Moon resort in Montego Bay, Jamaica.
He went on to own and run properties in Miami and the Bahamas. He still runs Strawberry Hill, in Jamaica’s Blue Mountains and the Caves set on a clifftop in Negril, while splitting his time between the island and NYC.Now, Blackwell’s storied carrier working with the world’s most famous artists is being chronicled in a memoir: “The Islander: My Life in Music and Beyond” (out June 7 and available to pre-order now).Blackwell, who is a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, spoke to The Post about his ventures in hospitality and recording and discovering the stars whose songs we all sing out loud.My cousin John Pringle opened Round Hill in Montego Hill in the 1950s, which attracted an elite crowd right away because of his wide network of friends.
Noel Coward came to stay, and so did the Kennedy family before John became president.I was a teenager at the time and so impressed by the whole set up that I was inspired to get into hotels.
I started by teaching waterski lessons to guests at Half Moon, which was near Round Hill. At the same time, air travel to Jamaica picked up, and Montego Bay was becoming popular with tourists.
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