Tape with Bob Marley recordings is found and put up for auction!

On some day in the spring of 1968, a slim and slender 23-year-old Jamaican arrived at an apartment on Valentine Avenue in the Bronx with a guitar and a future no one could have imagined. He was Bob Marley, who eventually sold tens of millions of albums and transformed reggae into an international musical movement, but who, at this point, was determined to learn the mysteries of rhythm and blues. To that end, he went to the Bronx to follow in the footsteps of Jimmy Norman, a then 31-year-old songwriter and singer who had written dozens of hit songs for singer and producer Johnny Nash. Nash had just signed Marley to his label, JAD Records.

"He was just a cool young guy who loved music," Norman recalled. "He loved the Impressions, and he loved James Brown."

The two, along with Marley's wife Rita and Norman's songwriting partner Al Pyfrom, performed over the following three days. Then Norman set up a recorder and recorded 24 minutes of music on a tape that soon disappeared. It was not heard for 34 years, during the period in which Marley became a world star and died of cancer at age 36 in 1981. Forgotten by Norman, the tape remained in a box of tapes in his Upper West Side apartment until it was found in June by a volunteer from the Jazz Foundation of America, who was cleaning the place.

The tape, which was put up for auction last Friday at Christie's, has eight songs sung by Marley — five written by him and three by Norman and Pyfrom. It documents a rare moment in an artist's development, a period just before reggae and Bob Marley himself began to gain popularity. "I live in a rat's nest, I can't find anything in my apartment," Norman said. "I thought it was junk. I almost recorded over that tape."

Roger Steffens, an expert on Marley's work and founding editor of The Beat, the reggae magazine, stated: "This was Marley at the birth of reggae. He was trying everything in the early years of his career to achieve success. He saw it as a way to put himself in the hands of someone else who could help him reach success in the US." Although other Marley demo tapes exist and have been released on compilations, Norman's tape is a rarity, Steffens said, because "they are influenced by pop and not by reggae."

Considering its age and neglect, the sound is clear, as is Marley's voice. Marley played guitar, while Norman played piano and sang in the background. Rita Marley's voice can also be heard along with Norman's ex-wife Dorothy. Norman recorded the tape on an ordinary recorder one late afternoon, after a long day of recording. They also used drugs. "Bob introduced me to the spliff," he said, using the Jamaican word for marijuana.

What is strange, especially for those accustomed to his reggae, is the style Marley sings in. On one track, "Stay With Me," Marley sings in an almost doo-wop style; on another, "Splish for My Splash," he adopts the slow rhythm of love songs by 1960s artists such as Sam Cooke. What stands out across the eight songs, however, is Marley's voice. "He didn't sound like anyone else," Norman stated. Christie's staff say the tape should raise between US$10 and 15 thousand, although the buyer receives only the tape, not the rights to the eight songs, which were later recorded and released in a more commercial form.

Norman said the session was considered such a success that he went to Jamaica and spent eight months overseeing the recording of dozens of other songs, many of them written by Marley. Some of them were included on other albums by the singer and show the growing influence of rock steady, a precursor to reggae, on Marley's music.

That was a time of artistic ferment that Norman remembers fondly. But before leaving Jamaica, Norman saw Marley only one more time, shortly before his death. "It seemed like the weight of the world was on his shoulders," he stated. "He said, 'I wish I were in Trench Town, swimming.'" Norman's decision to sell the tape was practical. He had a heart attack last year and is in difficult physical and financial health. A member of the Coasters, the doo-wop group from 1970 to 1998, Norman had to stop touring because of his health.

Wendy Oxenhorn, executive director of the Jazz Foundation of America, which helps sick musicians, said that discoveries like the Bob Marley tape are not rare. "We knew a man who played with Miles Davis and found boxes full of song drafts and recordings," she stated. "We brainwashed our volunteers so they wouldn't throw anything away." Norman said he had dozens of other tapes that might contain Bob Marley material. In 1996, he gave JAD Records founder Danny Sims several tapes on which he and Marley played together. They were released as part of "Soul Almighty," an album focused on Marley's formative years.

Whitney Broussard, an entertainment industry lawyer who has handled many copyright cases, said that for a recording of the tape to be released, a series of copyright issues would have to be resolved, such as obtaining permission from the owner of Bob Marley's rights and estate. A call to the London lawyer for Bob Marley's estate was not returned. Even the tape up for sale might contain some additional material, Norman said. "I don't remember what's on the other side of the tape," he stated. "I got so excited listening to one side."