According to a number of recent reports by The Rolling Stone and The Guardian, a recent stock of “lost” recordings from legendary reggae artist Bob Marley have recently been found. According to The Guardian, 13 reel-to-reel analogue tapes were discovered in the damp and dusty basement of a hotel in Kensal Rise, London after 40 years of burial. Apparently, Marley himself frequented the hotel throughout the 1970s.
United Kingdom resident Joe Gatt received the recordings from a friend who discovered them in a cardboard box. “[My friend] was doing a building refuse clearance that included some discarded two-inch tapes from the 1970s,” Gatt said. “I couldn’t just stand by and let these objects, damaged or not, be destroyed so I asked him not to throw them away.”
Originally, the tapes were thought to be irreparable as a result of the damage. However, after over a year of hard work and diligence by sound technician Martin Nichols, they recordings were able to be played. Afterward, Nichols described the sound quality of the tapes as having “the ability to send shivers down one’s spine.”
Although the Marley tapes are being referred to as “the lost masters”, they don’t contain any unheard music. Instead, the recordings, made using the Rolling Stones’ 24-track Mobile Studio, are of Marley’s concerts in Paris and London between 1974 and 1978 and feature popular tracks like “No Woman No Cry,” “Jammin,” and “I Shot the Sheriff.”
Unfortunately, most of the discovered recordings are available elsewhere in Marley’s discography. For example, Marley’s 1975 show at Lyceum in London was released as part of a deluxe edition of Marley’s Live! album, which was made widely available to the public in 2016. Another “lost” concert, one at London’s Rainbow in 1977, was released as part of the deluxe edition of Exodus in 2001.
Apart from the already-released recordings, Joe Gatt hasn’t revealed his plans for the recently discovered selection, but he can consider himself lucky to own such a fantastic piece of music history.
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