Master recordings archive disaster finally revealed
Dismissed at the time as involving nothing important, now we find this worst-case scenario. "The biggest disaster in the history of the music business."
The fire and the coverup, it ends up, are the tip of a historical iceberg. Section four of this piece will bring either sadness or anger.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/m...pgtype=Article
The July 1997 Billboard article
Digging deeper into the links, Billboard July 12, 1997, pages 3, 88 and 89. Past transgressions pre-fire are described. Just an example, an entire warehouse, including four floors of RCA "catalog product - pre-tape-material ranging from metal parts, acetates, shellac disk masters and alternate takes to test pressings, master matrix books, and session rehearsal recordings" was blown up and pushed into the Delaware River to make landfill for a pier.
https://books.google.com/books?id=eg...201997&f=false