Island Records is a major American record label that operates as a division of Universal Music Group. It was founded by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall, and Leslie Kong in Jamaica and has been based in the United Kingdom since 1962. Blackwell sold the label to PolyGram in 1989. Both Island, and another recent PolyGram acquisition, A&M, were at the time the largest independent record labels in history, with Island in particular having exerted a major influence on the progressive UK music scene in the early 1970s. The label operates as one of Universal Music's standalone labels since 2014, also handling Mercury Records.