The Real Bahamas in Music & Song (side A)

By 1965, when The Real Bahamas in Music & Song was released, Joseph Spence was already identified in the liner notes as "A Legend In His Own Time".  Spence appears on 4 songs here—one is solo and the others are collaborations with his wife Louise and sister Jenny (along with her family, the Pindar Family).  The Pindar Family also contribute the album's closer, "I Bid You Goodnight", an earlier recording than any I've heard by the Incredible String Band, Grateful Dead, or Charalambides.  Most of the songs here have spiritual lyrics, and most feature unusual tonalities similar to those employed by Spence on his solo albums.  The primitive recordings are well mastered and preserved.  The cover is the old-fashioned style of paper glued on thick cardboard—the painting has aged better than the series-standard design around it.