A Maltese businessman is being hailed for saving newly-discovered Bob Marley master tapes found in the cellar of a London hotel.
The tapes, featuring live recordings from Bob Marley and the Wailers, are being restored. They are considered priceless.
The Telegraph newspaper said the collection was only discovered and rescued from the scrap heap by pure chance when Maltese UK resident Joe Gatt, a long-time Marley fan, took a phone call from a friend.
“I received a call from a friend telling me that he was doing a building refuse clearance that included some old discarded 2” tapes from the 1970s,” he said. “Being a big music fan, who ironically, was actually in the audience for those historic Lyceum Marley dates, I couldn’t just standby and let these objects, damaged or not, simply be destroyed … so I asked him not to throw them away," he told the newspaper.
UK media said the collection consists of 13 reel-to-reel tapes, recorded on a mobile, 24-track recording console loaned to Marley by The Rolling Stones.
The collection was found at the Kensal Rise hotel in West London last year and its discovery was announced a few days ago. The band stayed at the hotel during European tours in the 1970s.
The Observer said Mr Gatt passed the master recordings to business partner and jazz singer Louis Hoover, who regularly headlines at Ronnie Scott’s in London.
Hoover told the newspaper: “I was speechless, to be honest. It was quite comical, looking back now, as Joe was so cool and matter of fact about rescuing these global artefacts that I actually had to stop the car to check that I had heard him correctly.
“When I saw the labels and footnotes on the tapes, I could not believe my eyes, but then I saw how severely water damaged they were. There was literally plasticised gunk oozing from every inch and, in truth, saving the sound quality of the recordings, looked like it was going to be a hopeless task.”
The condition of the tapes was described as "appalling" due to water damage, but most have already been restored and archived digitally.