Joseph Spence

[davidbeinct]

Some preaching at the beginning but please do yourself a favor and listen to this. Maybe some of you are familiar with Joseph Spence but I just checked him out in my YouTube feed.

[blue]

My Dad was Carib Indian. So Spence and real calypso guys like Lord Kitchener, the Mighty Sparrow, Growling Tiger, and Roaring Lion were a thing when I was growing up.

Spence is the Reverend Gary Davis of the Islands... He's on my computer and IPhone. Check out the loose rag "On the Rolling Sea"





Ya'll may not know it, but "Diss Tracks" and "Rap Battles" go back to at least the 40's!

[Ceabeceabe]

I learned of Joseph through Catfish Keith, who does a couple of his songs.

[godfreydaniel]

Spence is with the Pinder family on this one. Dead fans should know it. Great song:

[davidbeinct]

Bumping this thread to ask if anyone knows of any video footage of Spence playing?

[Rudy4]

Originally Posted by davidbeinct

Bumping this thread to ask if anyone knows of any video footage of Spence playing?

According to Peter Siegel there are no known videos of Spence playing.

I highly advise anyone interested in Spence's life or body of work to listen to Peter Siegel's interview with Jason Verlinde in Fretboard Journal's podcast #328. Peter Siegel had a lot of up close and personal experience with Spence.

[reeve21]

This may be of interest.

https://elijahwald.com/spence.html

[pegleghowell]

Mr.Spence was a genius..simple as that.

[godfreydaniel]

Smithsonian/Folkways recently released a new album of previously unissued Spence songs:

https://folkways.si.edu/joseph-spence/encore

[Mycroft]

I've a CD of his somewhere. Heard about him from Ry Cooder back in the day, who was a big fan and covered some of his songs. Taj Mahal too.