Lost Bob Marley Tapes From 1970s Discovered, Restored From Water Damage

A collection of lost Bob Marley recordings referred to as "the lost masters" has been discovered and restored, after water damage from more than 40 years in a hotel basement.

The Guardian reports that the tapes have the original live recordings from Marley's concerts in London and Paris between 1974 and 1978, including songs like "No Woman No Cry," "Jammin," "Exodus" and "I Shot The Sheriff." The concerts were recorded live on a mobile 24-track studio vehicle that the Rolling Stones loaned to Marley; it was the only vehicle of its kind in the UK at the time.

Of the 13 reel-to-reel analog tapes, 10 were fully restored after more than a year and £25,000 - or about $31,215.00 - worth of repairs and audio techniques. Two of the tapes were blank, and one was damaged beyond repair.

The tapes were discovered in the rundown Kensai Rise hotel in north London, where Bob Marley and the Wailers would stay while touring Europe in the 1970s. Joe Gatt, a Marley fan and London businessman, said a friend gave them to him after finding them while doing a building refuse clearance.

Gatt gave them to business partner and jazz singer Louis Hoover, who then gave them to sound technician specialist Martin Nichols. Nichols said that he "spent hours on hours, inch by inch, painstakingly cleaning all the gunge off until they were ready for a process called 'baking,' to allow them to be played safely."

After the tapes were restored, Hoover said, hearing them "made the hair on the back of our necks stand up and genuine shivers ran up our spines with joy."

“The experience was comparable to, say, finding Van Gogh’s easel, paint pallet and paints in an old room somewhere, then Vincent emerges through a secret door to paint 26 of his finest masterpieces … purely for us,” he said.

The Guardian's story doesn't say whether the recordings will be released for purchase.