Gregg Musgrove, a former California highway patrol officer, has discovered a collection of unreleased songs by Michael Jackson, the late pop singer.
The 56-year-old stay-at-home dad unexpectedly came across the trove of Jackson’s tapes when he purchased an abandoned storage unit in the San Fernando Valley.
The storage unit was said to have once belonged to Bryan Loren, the American producer who collaborated with Jackson on his 1991 album ‘Dangerous’.
According to Hollywood Reporter, the cassette and digital-audio tapes contain 12 unreleased tracks that Jackson worked on between approximately 1989 and 1991.
Tapes found in Loren’s storage unit.
Photo credit: Gregg Musgrove
“I’ve gone to all the fan sites. Some of [the songs] are rumored to exist, some of them have been leaked a little bit,” he said.
“A couple aren’t even out there in the world.
“I’m listening to this stuff, and I would get goosebumps because nobody’s ever heard this stuff before.
“To hear Michael Jackson actually talk and kind of joke back and forth, it was really, really cool.”
However, it’s unlikely that these recordings will be released publicly.
Musgrove’s inventory list.
Musgrove said the attorney hired to contact Jackson’s estate was informed that the copyright on all of Jackson’s musical recordings and compositions is owned by the estate.
He also quoted the estate as claiming to have the master recordings of the newly found songs in their vaults, which means nothing commercial can be done with the new copies.
In February, Jackson’s estate sold half of the singer’s publishing and recorded music catalogue to Sony.
Billboard quoted sources as confirming that the deal valued the music assets above $1.2 billion.