What did we lose in the Universal Music fire that blazed through archives in 2008?

[after you]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1025556 [[https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1025556)

[after you]

Apparently some disgruntled security guard set the fire

[Glenpwood]

As far as The Supremes goes nothing - all the Motown label masters in general weren’t stored there. Florence’s solo ABC masters made The NY Times list as that labels archives were stored in LA.

Oh, & no security guard set that fire. A worker warming asphalt shingles with a blowtorch in the general area left before confirming the work had cooled and it quickly spread - torching the vault along with several other Buildings.

[marybrewster]

I thought I read that Flo Ballard's solo recordings [[a la ABC) went up in smoke.

[after you]

You are correct unfortunately Flos Masters where destroyed

[marybrewster]

You are correct unfortunately Flos Masters where destroyed

What I don't understand is: wasn't the rumor that Flo's masters ended up in Motown's vaults? So if that's the case, shouldn't they have been stored with all of the Diana/Mary/Supremes material?

[Spreadinglove21]

Maybe somewhere along the line Universal purchased the ABC label and its vault?

[RanRan79]

Flo's masters were purchased by Motown, probably because someone at the label saw the wisdom in Motown holding the option on the recordings for future release. It boggles my mind that, of Motown's holdings, only Flo's masters would be housed somewhere other than with the other Motown stuff. I'll wait for official confirmation from Motown before I buy into the Flo's recordings went up in smoke theory, regardless of what has been printed in the media.