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Bahamian folk guitarist and singer, renowned for his highly original and rhythmic guitar playing. Born August 3, 1910 in Andros, Bahamas, died March 18, 1984 in Nassau, Bahamas (aged 73), buried at Woodlawn Gardens Cemetery, Nassau City, New Providence, Bahamas. Born in the Bahamas, Spence developed a unique fingerpicking style that combined complex bass patterns with syncopated melody lines, often accompanied by his gruff humming and vocalizations. His music blended Bahamian rhythms, gospel, blues, and traditional folk. He gained wider recognition in the 1950s and 1960s after American folklorists recorded his performances, which then influenced a generation of American folk and blues musicians. Artists such as Ry Cooder, Taj Mahal, and The Grateful Dead cited him as a major influence. His most famous recordings include “Living on the Hallelujah Side”, “Out on the Rolling Sea”, “Coming In on a Wing and a Prayer” and the legendary Christmas song performance "Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town".
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Joseph Spence (b. August 3, 1910 in Andros, Bahamas, d. March 18, 1984 in Nassau, Bahamas) was a Bahamian guitarist and singer. He is well known for his vocalizations and humming while playing the guitar. Several American musicians, including Taj Mahal, the Grateful Dead, Ry Cooder, Catfish Keith, Woody Mann, and Olu Dara, as well as the British guitarist John Renbourn, were influenced by and have recorded variations of his arrangements of gospel and Bahamian songs.
Born in Andros, Bahamas, in 1910, Spence was the son of a pastor. He got his start in music as a teenager playing in his great-uncle Tony Spence's band. After leaving school he worked as a sponge fisher, stonemason, and carpenter, and as a crop cutter in the United States. The earliest recordings of Spence were made on his porch by the folk musicologist Samuel Charters, in 1958. Charters initially thought that Spence's guitar playing was the work of two players duelling. These recordings were released by Folkways Records on the album Music of the Bahamas Volume One, in 1959. In 1964, Fritz Richmond travelled to the Bahamas to record Spence, and recordings made in Spence's living room were issued on the album Happy All the Time. The following year, Jody Stecher and Peter Siegel made the trip to record Spence, recording tracks also featuring his sister Edith and her husband Raymond Pinder and their daughter Geneva, which were released on The Real Bahamas Volume One. These tracks included Spence's arrangement of "I Bid You Goodnight", which was covered by the Grateful Dead and Ralph McTell, among others. The album was a success, and as a result Spence toured the United States. A second volume was released in 1978. Mike Heron, of the Incredible String Band, credited Spence as the inspiration for the "Lay down, dear sister" passage in "A Very Cellular Song" on the album The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter, released in 1968. Curiously, Spence credited Heron with the same song, claiming to have learned it from the Incredible String Band. Spence released a third album, Good Morning Mr. Walker, in 1972. He performed several more times in the United States during the 1970s.
He died on March 18, 1984, aged 73, in Nassau, Bahamas.
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Born on the island of Andros in the Bahamas, Spence created an idiosyncratic (and inimitable) guitar style rife with percussive and improvisatory vamps around staid hymns and such "square" standards as "Coming in on a Wing and a Prayer." He was a folk guitarist's Thelonious Monk, and his growling vocal counterpoint and surprising inventions are one of folk music's great delights. ~ Mark A. Humphrey.
"The music of Joseph Spence inspires astonishment and delight in equal measure: "How did he do it? And thank God he did."
- Nathan Salsburg
"It all started with Joseph Spence when I was a little kid. He was one of my all-time great inspirations. When he did those bass runs, I didn't understand it. I was so mad all the time." - Ry Cooder