Before we begin, just a few quick questions. Have you ever heard of Joseph Spence? If not? Why not?

So often great men struggle with earthly acts and fritter away their entire lives trying to create a legacy that lives on long after them. A legacy which allows those that follow to learn and remark at their courage and progress. Joseph Spence managed this feat through no feigned gesture, but simply by living the life he was born to live and sharing his God given talent.

This folk guitarist was a phenomenon from days gone by and his music transcends time. He died a revered figure to many who studied and yet could not dissect or duplicate his unique soulful style or sound. For older generations the name strikes a chord, for younger generations they could not begin to fathom the extent of his legend. To give younger generations an idea of this man's importance let us use a current technological phrase, "Joseph Spence can be Googled". For the advanced in age, that means he can be researched on the Internet.

In the terms that a jazz lover may understand, he was a guitarist's Thelonious Monk. In the terms that an artist may embrace, he was the DeKooning of the guitar. How many Bahamian musicians can boast of having a page on the Rolling Stone magazine website? And how many other artists have items for sale on Yahoo, Amazon, Walmart and countless others without ever having spawned a top t10 hit.

No one would have thought that a man secluded in the big back yard of Andros would have the reach and the wherewithal to influence and flavour generations of international musicians. These days Bahamian artists try to impact on established music genres or conform to a proven formula. There was nothing formulaic about the way Joseph Spence inspired a generation of guitarists.

The genius of Joseph Spence was reflected in the many artists, producers and folklorists who engaged in cultural pilgrimages to lay eyes on him and bear witness to his signature ground-breaking guitar style. A style that to this day remains embedded in the acclaimed Folkways Recordings collections of The Smithsonian.

Joseph Spence can justifiably be referred to as the greatest Bahamian musician and guitarist who ever lived and yet many Bahamians know nothing of him or his legend. To rephrase, no new generations are aware of the trail that this musical prodigy blazed, without succumbing to the largesse that has now become synonymous with having a gift.

Apostle Charles Wallace of the Apostles of the Endtime Church in Nassau, a community church located in Baintown, had the distinct pleasure of meeting Joseph Spence in his teens and sustaining a close friendship with the musician throughout his life. Apostle Wallace is originally from Behring Point, Andros.

This musical innovator was so ahead of his time that his method of playing an instrument required a new play style to evolve to another level.

A quick search on the Internet will turn up more references for this musician than for any other Bahamian recording artist. So vast was his talent and the musical spectrum he impacted. And yet Joseph Spence, the man, remained separate and apart from the musician in his humility. His many careers included; farmer, migrant worker, fisherman and carpenter.

Born in 1910 on the island of Andros, this singer/fingerstyle guitarist was first exposed to music by his uncle who lived in the United States and sent him his first guitar when he was just 9-years-old.

Spence, as he was endearingly called by his siblings, his wife and inevitably everyone who came to know him, was raised with his sister and four half-brothers. In his youth, the Out Islands were still largely unpopulated, this meant that there was no access to mainland music. The influences that Joseph Spence did absorb came in the form of Baptist anthems, rhyming spirituals, Tin Pan alley songs, Trinidadian calypso, children's songs and even Christmas carols. The ingenious guitarist broke new ground finding ways to combine and derive these musical genres into a format that better suited his own voice.

The gifted Androsian was most heavily influenced while still in his teens, during a stint as a sponge hooker. Spence would take his guitar with him on these trips. The men whom he accompanied would often spend months at a time out in the "Mud" - the shallow waters where natural sponges were often found and harvested. The choral style developed on the Out Islands known as "rhyming" emerged when spongers were unable to return back to port in time for Sunday fellowship. Instead, they took bible verses, a few basic chords as well as an innate sense of rhythm adaptability and sang out their own service and prayers on the boats, utilisng a call and response format. Spence took hold of the approach and transformed it into something of his own creation. The teenager left the sponge industry one year before the great sponge blight in 1938, which wiped out 90 percent of the Bahamas' sponge population.

Not long after Spence and his wife Louise moved to Nassau, the deployment of Americans for World War II led to a slow down in production for many US farms and factories. The U.S. government contracted Bahamian workers to come to the states and fill the void. From 1944 to 1946, Spence and his wife picked crops and took the time to travel from Florida through several southern states, as far north as Delaware.

On "Won't That Be a Happy Time," Spence is accompanied by his wife Louise. This track embraces a more Caribbean anthem sentiment, and is representative of an inborn influence which can be associated with the heritage of the islands' original inhabitants, freed slaves of African descent and undiluted impressions of the South. But it is not a Bahamian song. This song was in fact a shaped note hymnal which was given birth to in Tennessee, originally entitled "Harmony Heaven". The selection is a perfect representation of Spence's ability to take a piece of music and mold it into something of his own design.

Subsequently, when the producers of the album, on which this track appears, query the guitarist, the exchange went as follows: "Can you read music, Spence?" He replied, "No, I cannot read music." "How did you learn this song?" Indicating the book, he said, "From this book, mon. There's a lot of funny songs in this book. Lot of funny songs." "But if you can't read notes, how did you learn the melody to this song?" The response which typified Spence's personality, "I's talented." And yet the reply was not issued in a boastful manner. Rather, it is what it is and he accepts his ability as a gift.

Apostle Wallace said of Spence, "He was always humble, never boastful. He may have been taken advantage of [by those who recorded and profited from his music] because of his humility. Once the world discovered him, they made more of a fuss over him than he did of himself."

Although Joseph Spence's musical mastery was self taught, his uncle was considered to be one of the best musicians in The Bahamas. He only played for dances and Joseph would often accompany him for a set or two.

It was the initial tapes recorded in the 1930s by Texas native Alan Lomax, who traveled through the Southern United States as well as the Caribbean recording folk and traditional music for the Library of Congress, which inspired other folklorists to take a closer look at Spence's style. In 1958, scholar Sam Charters, Professor of Music at the University of California took a field trip to Andros and made some recordings of Spence's stylings for his own edification. Apostle Wallace was just 17 years old and had returned to Fresh Creek to work at the Commissary Store at the Andros Bahamas Development Company. It was there that he met Spence whose official profession was that of stone mason. Apostle Wallace was present for and recorded with Spence during Charters' visit.

The very first time that Charters heard Joseph Spence playing he was sitting on a wall at a construction site. Charters is said to have checked behind the wall for another guitarist, so layered and rich was Spence's finger picking approach.

Some years later, in 1964, Fritz Richmond of the Jim Kweski Jug Band visited the islands on behalf of Vanguard Records as a sort of fact finding trip to see if Joseph Spence was still around. Upon locating the elusive Spence, Richmond sent a a telegram back to the record company saying, "Spence lives. Bring 12 sets of medal bronze strings and a tape recorder."

Spence would often travel back and forth between Nassau and Andros. He was known throughout Andros as the man who played for dances and also for playing during "setting-up" or wakes. Activities and entertainment were so scarce on the island that Reverend Wallace said, "We would often be waiting in hope that someone would die, so that Spence could come and play for the setting up."

By the early seventies Spence had officially become an icon for North American guitarists. A young American folklorist headed south to interview the sixty-something year old musician. The interviewer noted that Spence's sound was, "unmistakable". It was also noted that Spence preferred to play in the key of D, because of the way he tuned the guitar's lowest pitched string. Based on this fact, even though Spence created music for many genres, the songs often had similar licks. When asked why he had chosen to write all his songs in D, Spence made it clear that he knew about all the other keys but he just "got tired of 'em."

There are many well known artists who have produced covers of classic Joseph Spence tracks. During his lifetime, Joseph met many of them but never heard their homages to his talent. In fact, he never even heard his own genius played back to him. He never owned a record player.

Apostle Wallace noted that "In the beginning, at that time, he did not have a manager. Organizers for concerts in the states would take him over there knowing what a big audience draw he could be, but it was only in his later years that he received a few royalty cheques."

Spence never even learned how to drive. He rode his bike everywhere and when he was too aged to ride, he still walked along with his bicycle using it as an elaborate crutch.

Consider this an official challenge to anyone who regards themselves as melodically exposed. The idea of having someone's music explained to you and then forming an opinion is tantamount to critiquing a work of art through word of mouth. Upon listening to the Joseph Spence selections as they are featured on The Real Bahamas as recorded by Peter K. Siegel and Jody Stecher, it became difficult not to connect and indeed not to consider oneself a new inductee of his well-deserved cult following.

The Spence-helmed, "Don't Take Everybody to Be Your Friend" featured an unintended, but unmistakable B.B. King undercurrent. The jazz and blues influence is clear and smooth, despite the concept of sound which the finger picking style may infer. His sound embodies a fluidity which seems to ebb and flow, and enables one to understand why a music critic described his style as follows, "His vocals bob like a fisherman's floater, sometimes leading the guitar, sometimes supporting it."

Although Spence was known to play the occasional blues song, the cornerstone of his repertoire was rooted in the religious. The hymnal influence is easily acknowledged in the spiritual anthem "Great Dream from Heaven". Younger Bahamians may have more familiarity with this format as they have been exposed to true island praise involving minimal aesthetic backdrop and heartfelt musical vocal lilting.

The most popular Joseph Spence song bears the distinction of being the most covered or copied song by other musicians and vocalists on his playlist. The anthem, which is equal parts chant and cantata, is called "I Bid You Goodnight." Interpretations of this traditional wake song have been performed by a variety of artists including but not limited to The Grateful Dead and Aaron Neville. In spite of this, the track was considered to be Spence's signature offering, moving one admirer to say that, "[Spence] sang like a witness to a heavenly glory and played guitar like an accompanying chorus of angels. [He] sang like a man in continuous rapture punctuating lyrics with trills, laughter and throaty rumbles." Upon listening to "I Bid You Goodnight", one cannot help but address the bittersweet mix of melancholy and rejoicing that emanates from the souls of the performers. They manage to strike a steady balance between rollicking and respectful.

Apostle Wallace affirms that although he learned how to play the guitar from Joseph "Young" Spence, "No one could ever play the way [Spence] did. No one could mimic his sound. People often said that there was something mystical about the way he played."

In Spence's later years, when following a heart attack the doctor not only requested that he forego his preferred rum and coke, but also cut back on playing his music, the listener can hear the insightful cautionary tales of the elders. Whether it came in the form of folk tales or fables, the representation of an old time story complete with a moral lesson set to music sets the piece's tone. It is essentially a melodic Sunday School lecture. The name of the song is "Mary and Joseph".

Through the recordings of Spence's work, it is easy to believe that the preference of folk as a genre could be lifted to some level of worship. It is hard to believe these songs were committed to eternity almost 40 years ago. For at the moment of their genesis they were indeed ahead of their time. And yet nowadays where everything that was old enjoys a period of renaissance, these songs seem ageless. The messages encapsulated in these anthems are applicable to each generational demographic.

The tunes imply simplicity, but the artist's nuances can define the difference between transcribing notes, transforming a piece of music and transporting the listener to another realm of understanding and appreciation. Some have said that once you have heard Joseph Spence's work, the reaction can be very clear cut, you either love him or hate him. The idea that his rumbles and grunts are gibberish only occurs when you do not listen with your soul. Indeed Spence's musical musings take you to a higher plane where words may only serve to cheapen the experience.

Although the key and rhythm in Spence songs do seem to be repetitious, the musical key matched the artist's voice, and how does one reject, deny or dismiss their own voice. This March 18, will mark the twentieth anniversary of the death of Joseph Spence.