Yes I think this is definitely the case - I spoke with an ebay seller - and nearly bought a bunch of quad tapes from him - about 15 years ago, who told me a story that basically an engineer at GRT (who did all of ABC's tape manufacturing) had taken home all their masters and kept them in his mother's basement after the company went out of business in the late '70s, and then eventually committed suicide after suffering mental health issues for many years. After he passed away his mother was going to have the tapes sent to the dump, I think, but let some people come and take away what they wanted. The guy I spoke to got some small percentage which included some quad masters including Ramsey Lewis, The Grass Roots and Cat Stevens - he sent me photos of them as well, so he's not lying. Probably fearful of legal repercussions he wouldn't tell me any more of the story (so no who/where/what/when/why/how) and eventually got cold feet about the deal we struck and disappeared - maybe in retrospect I alarmed him by asking too many questions, I dunno. But yes, hopefully all those other GRT tapes are out there somewhere, and one day they'll make it into the hands of someone who can reunite them with a/the label that will actually reissue them. I tried my best with these ones, that's for sure!
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