Sunday, December 19, 2010

Joseph Spence - Happy All the Time

A bit of a palate cleanser here for you after all that morbidity from last week. Joseph Spence is the most famous proponent of the Bahamian guitar style, a mixture of American blues and pop with calypso and wild improvisation. A large part of his appeal, aside from the deft and circular guitar playing, is his voice: a gravelly, gurgling rasp spit out in bursts of scatting gibberish, garbled English, girlish high-pitched wailing, deep epiglottal humming, and the occasional mad roar. It's infectious in its subtle charming madness, teasing parts of your brain that might not get much of a workout if you just sit around and listen to heavy metal all the time, you grumpy bastard!
Out On The Rolling Sea

2 comments:

  1. An album I've loved for years, but never managed to locate in digital form. You win again, Abdul.

    PS The title track is one of the all-time greatest feel good songs ever written.

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