Bob Marley Expert Sells Archives in ‘Multimillion Dollar’ Deal

Longtime reggae collector, Bob Marley expert, radio host and 82-year-old author Roger Steffens has sold his enormous archive of vinyl and other memorabilia — which is widely acknowledged to include the largest and most comprehensive collection of Marley artifacts in the world — for an undisclosed “multimillion-dollar” sum. The archive, which has been valued at as much as $3 million in the past, was acquired for anundisclosed amount by Josef Bogdanovich, first cousin of the late director Peter, and one of four heirs to his grandfather Martin’s StarKist Tuna fortune.

“It’s a privilege and a huge responsibility to the culture of Jamaica,” Bogdanovich tells Variety of the purchase. “It’s a monumental undertaking, but the work is so powerful.” 

Steffens, who has known Bogdanovich for more than four decades, says, “Of all the people who have tried to buy this collection for the past 37 years, he is the most qualified to do all the things necessary to preserve and promote it, and to return this history to Jamaica without any political control.”

Now in his early eighties, Bogdanovich moved from California to Jamaica in 1999. There, he founded the Downsound label to record and promote reggae and dancehall artists like Nanko, I-Maroon, Fantan Mojan and Jah Cure. Over the years, he has also acquired the Montego Bay-based summer Reggae Sumfest (the successor to Sunsplash) and Sting festivals — and now he has a unique, world-class collection as well.

“For me, it’s the artifacts that come straight from the people, the trinkets from all over the world” that make the collection special, Bogdanovich says, adding that he intends to place the artifacts in a museum he originally wanted to build alongside the seaside Catherine Hall Entertainment Center, home of Sumfest, although certain geological issues have forced him to look elsewhere for a location. He now plans to build it in Montego Bay and has hired Robert Santelli of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Grammy Museum as a creative advisor. Even though there is already a Bob Marley Museum in the Jamaican capital of Kingston, Steffens’ archive is acknowledged as the largest collection of the legendary musician’s artifacts in the world.

Steffens’ collection began in 1973 with a used copy of the Wailers’ first album, “Catch a Fire,” which he bought after reading an adulatory article in Rolling Stone. He saw the iconic Jimmy Cliff film “The Harder They Come” the following night, and its soundtrack became the second item in the collection.

“Reggae and ska records like Millie Small’s ‘My Boy Lollipop’ and Desmond Dekker’s ‘Israelites’ were considered novelty records before that,” explains Steffens. “But 1973 was the birth of reggae in America.  I was always attracted to both the spiritual and political aspects of the music.”

Steffens eventually moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career and ultimately became a voiceover artist and audiobook narrator, as well as the long-running radio host for KCRW’s “Reggae Beat” and the syndicated “Reggae Beat International” show, as well as a photographer, editor of The Beat magazine and author of eight books on Marley. He first showcased his archives for the public in 2001, curating the collection with a sprawling eight-month exhibit in Long Beach, California, dubbed “The World of Reggae,” which coincided with Marley receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Walking through the vast collection is like taking residence inside Steffens’ head, with its barrage of reggae posters, album covers, buttons, live cassettes and interviews, rare white label Trojan releases, magazine articles, folk art, paintings and Haile Selassie memorabilia, including an autographed, postmarked envelope commemorating his famed October 4, 1963, speech to the United Nations, the words of which were set to music by Marley in “War.”

Other prized possessions include a poster for Marley’s July 21, 1978, at Berkeley’s Greek Theater autographed by Marley and the Wailers. When the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame borrowed it for an exhibition, it insured the piece for $75,000, making it perhaps the most valuable single piece in the collection. There is also a T-shirt from Marley’s famed 1978 “One Love” concert in Jamaica, where he famously joined the hands of the island’s two rival politicians, Michael Manley and Edward Seaga.

Steffens also boasts a treasure trove of original Marley singles on the Tuff Gong label, including several white label discs only pressed for sound systems and not intended for the public. One is a copy of “Knotty (not Natty) Dread,” credited to Bob Marley, Wailers & I Three, another a hand-written label, “Red Red Red,” penned by Marley himself, eventually released as “Redder Than Red.” There’s also a photograph of Marley the moment his shoe was pierced and his toe spiked by the French music journalist during a friendly football match in 1977, leading to the discovery of the cancer which eventually killed him.

Steffens estimates that he has spent around $500,000 on his collection. “My voiceover and acting career paid for my reggae habit,” he admits. “From June 1973, anything I came across about reggae, Marley, Rastafari, Ethiopian history and the Bible, I collected. It’s priceless because, with my own limited resources, I was able to accumulate some treasures. [Selling it] is my way of passing the torch.”

He first visited Jamaica in 1976, the week then-prime minster Michael Manley declared a state of emergency in anticipation of being invaded by the U.S. The army was mobilized, tanks were placed on all the major intersections and a curfew was put into effect.  Warned not to go into Kingston, Steffens braved the tension to end up at Marley’s own record shack “the size of two telephone booths,” where a pickpocket, a local notorious reggae singer and producer almost relieved him of $400 cash, only to sell him one of his own singles from under his jacket for $1.25.

Determined to find a permanent home for the collection, he received his first offer — for the low six figures — in 1987 from the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Institute for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. Since then, he has entertained a number of bids, but went with Bogdanovich because of their relationship and because he plans to house it in Jamaica.

Both Stephen Davis and Timothy White, who wrote Bob Marley bios, used Steffens’ Reggae Archives to research their books, as did the producers and directors of the Marley documentary and recent “One Love” biopic, along with around 80 other authors over the years. “People have come here from all over the world,” Steffens says. “It’s always been open to anyone who wants to use it. But I always wanted to keep it affordable for someone to bring it to Jamaica.”