Compass Point Studios, and its house band the Compass Point All Stars, were going to be Chris Blackwell and Island Records’ defining statement to the world. Instead, they provided Grace Jones’s. And that, says David Bennun, looking back at the three extraordinary records she made there between 1980 and 1982, is more than enough
Yes they probably invented folk rock but also, on their landmark third album, Fairport Convention, presented a view of England that has now been lost... one of violent division along lines of class and gender but one that was also positive and questing, says Michael Hann