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Seasick Steve
He was the hit of the West Coast Blues 'n' Roots Festival for 2008, now let's reintroduce Seasick Steve: a real American, train-hopping, jailbirding, cowboying, carnival working, migrant farm picking, occasionally tramping, near-fatal heart attack surviving old hobo. Indeed, he's real deal. And we're thrilled he's coming back to show us how it's done again.
Steve was invited to leave his home before his fourteenth birthday (enough said). Having spent many hours listening to stories from the hobos, tramps and bums who would come by his childhood home asking for work or just a handout, he reckoned he was ready for a life on the rails.
So making up a ‘bindle' (sleeping roll and some clothes) and not forgetting his guitar, he headed off into the sunset. Sound romantic? For the most part it was not! Sleeping ruff. Going hungry. Working for handouts. Eating at the missions. Riding the rails. Playing on street corners for your small change and many (yes, read many) a free stay in the county jails of America...and this is the ‘G' rated version!
But then there was those moments...stories told and heard in the ‘jungle camps'; scraps of old songs picked up. Food for song? You bet! Seasick Steve's music is so out of it and old fashioned that it somehow arrives at modern. His audiences have been mainly younger people who are into the Fat Possum sounds of R.L. Burnside or bands like The White Stripes. While doing shows with R.L. Burnside, Steve saw how young audiences went crazy for what he was doing. After playing the kids would come and ask: "what kind of music is this?" Steve replied: "well it's kinda low down blues and such." Their response: "we hate blues...but man we love what you do!"
This is what got Seasick Steve out again and doing what he does best - being the pied piper of the low down hobo blues. And wait 'til you see and hear the three-string trance guitar.
Three albums in (Cheap, Dog House Music and now I Started Out With Nothin And I Still Got Most Of It Left), Seasick Steve has risen from the gravel to becomes one of the most acclaimed new bluesmen of our time - taking out a Mojo Award in the process.
Be a part of blues' latest (living might we add) legend at the sixth annual West Coast Blues 'n' Roots Festival.