Reggae archivist says sale of memorabilia will stock museum, honour legacy

After six years of speculation, Roger Steffens has sold his world-famous archives to Josef Bogdanovich, the American businessman and principal of Downsound Entertainment, owner of Reggae Sumfest.

In an interview with the Jamaica Observer, Steffens confirmed the sale, which was sealed on July 18, when he and his lawyer, Steven Lowy, signed the final documents in Los Angeles, USA.

The American author/historian said the archives will gradually be relocated to Montego Bay and placed in a museum operated by Downsound Entertainment.

It was a bittersweet occasion for the 82-year-old Vietnam war veteran, who amassed a bounty of reggae memorabilia in seven rooms of his Los Angeles home over the past 40 years.

Variety magazine, which broke the story of the sale, estimates it at a value of US$3 million, but Steffens denied this.

“I’m not getting anywhere near that after California state taxes and federal taxes, and all the legal fees. I won’t be a millionaire, but I’ll be set for life,” he said.

The archives comprise “all kinds of artifacts, posters, paintings, artwork, piles of CDs, buttons, and all kinds of Marley material”. There are also reams of recorded interviews Steffens conducted with noted reggae figures, including Marley, who he met in 1979 when the singer toured California.

Steffens admits there are items that will be difficult to part with.

“Some of it is [worth] more than money, some of it has a sentimental value for a variety of reasons that make it just as valuable to me. We have to start with the poster for Bob in Berkeley in July of 1978, it is signed by 45 of the people closest to Bob, including Bob himself, the entire Wailers band, the children, the I-Three, Bunny [Wailer], Vision Walker. All the important people have signed it,” he said.

The Brooklyn, New York-born Steffens discovered Jamaican pop culture in 1973 after reading a feature story on the rising Marley in Rolling Stone magazine. Three years later, he travelled to Jamaica for the first time and discovered a transformative music scene comparable to the hippie movement in San Francisco during the late 1960s.

Steffens has written a number of books on reggae and Marley, who died from cancer in 1981 at age 36.

Wailer and Peter Tosh, his colleagues in The Wailers, have visited the archives as well as Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder, Rod Stewart, Carlos Santana, Oliver Stone, and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Bogdanovich, who has known Steffens for over 40 years, told the Observer that purchasing his archives is “a massive responsibility”.

Steffens, who will be curator emeritus at the museum when it opens, said the Downsound Entertainment boss assured him the facility will do justice to his life’s work.

“Absolutely! We’ve had this discussion and I would never let this go until I was 100 per cent sure that it was going to the right people.”