Joseph Spence – Happy All The Time

Any of his tracks are these absolutely beautiful things. He’s just a completely, utterly wonderful guitar player. It was a friend of mine called Jody Stecher who’s a wonderful musician and the world’s biggest Joseph Spence fan, who went to visit him. He had a guitar with him and its tuning is perfect, but when Joseph Spence tried to play it he said, ‘Do you mind if I tune it?’ He tuned the guitar to what he had always heard as being perfectly in tune, started to play, and the music was just gorgeous. I never saw or met Joseph Spence, but I love his playing. I love the freedom of it, and the particular swing that it had. I’m not going to pretend I could ever play a Bahaman swing like that. Just a wonderful player with fabulous imagination.