by Howard Campbell
LOS ANGELES – For many years, Roger Steffens has acted as host and tour information to celebrities and reggae royalty who go to the world-famous archives in his Los Angeles house. After years of hypothesis, he has offered the most important assortment of Jamaican music memorabilia.
In an interview with South Florida Caribbean Information, Steffens confirmed the sale to Josef Bogdanovich, the American businessman whose Downsound Leisure owns the annual Reggae Sumfest present.
Steffens, 82, didn’t disclose the sale worth, however mentioned it is sufficient to assure him consolation for the remainder of his life. The archives, he added, would step by step be relocated to Montego Bay, house of Reggae Sumfest.
The gathering consists of quite a few objects associated to Bob Marley and The Wailers, reminiscent of photographs, paintings, pageant posters, uncommon vinyl information, and interviews with reggae icons. It’s saved in seven rooms of his residence, and though he values the items, he acknowledges that it was time to allow them to go.
“It’s change into a joyful burden over time. As the varied offers offered themselves and died over the previous 30 years or so, I felt an increasing number of of a burden to make this factor actually occur and have it go to Jamaica, as an alternative of promoting it for the sake of promoting it,” he disclosed.
Steffens estimates over 80 books have been printed by authors who utilized his archives for analysis. The shrine to roots-reggae has been visited by A-listers, Leonardo DiCaprio, Stevie Marvel, Keith Richards, and Carlos Santana. Plus, a bunch of reggae artists together with Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer, who with Marley have been essentially the most well-known members of The Wailers.
Steffens was born in Brooklyn, New York. He served within the Vietnam Battle for the US Military. After the warfare, he moved to California. In 1973, he realized about Jamaican popular culture when he examine Bob Marley in Rolling Stone journal.
Roger Steffens: An Authority on Bob Marley and The Wailers
Through the years, he grew to become an authority on Marley and The Wailers, writing a sequence of well-received books on them together with So A lot Issues to Say: The Oral Historical past of Bob Marley, launched in 2017. In 1979, two years earlier than Marley’s dying, Steffens interviewed the singer for his Reggae Beat radio present throughout his tour of California.
He is not going to completely sever ties with the archives. When it opens in Montego Bay, he’ll function curator emeritus, a task he’s trying ahead to.
“Which means I could also be touring to Jamaica very often. What a horrible factor that’s,” Steffens joked.
