| This Week's Highlights |
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analysis w/e 14.5.11 |
DVDs out 9.5.11 |
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@ DVDfever Youtube |
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May 11 2011 
DVDfever co uk
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Hobo hero back where he belongs. When Steve Gene Wold aka Seasick Steve entered Broadcasting House for a short stint on Later…with Jools Holland Hootenanny on December 31 2006, little did he realise how it would change his life forever. Steve knew little if anything about the show and it’s potential for launching careers. Now on his third album in as many years, Man From Another Time reverts back to the presentation of his then-new album Dog House Music. After an impressive set at Glasto 2008, he was snapped up by Warner Bros. Resulting album, I Started Out With Nothin’ And I Still Got Most Of It Left (250,000 copies sold) saw the hobo veer towards the mainstream market, and it worked. Steve oversaw the entire project including style, production, song choices etc. Gone was much of the dirt and grit of DHM (Bronzerat Records), heading more towards the world-blues of Eric Bibb. Now, 60-something Norwegian resident Steve is a celebrated bluesman with a huge following, so unsurprisingly, Man From Another Time is a big hit, making number 4 on the UK album charts. Going back to his rootsy DHM, (Steve has plenty to write about – he’s lived in 60 houses in his prolific itinerant lifestyle) this is probably the album everybody wants to hear from our Californian hero do – down and dirty, rugged blues with no frills but loadsa thrills on his various ‘guitars’ that include a four-stringed cigar box, three-string Trance Wonder, an his now famous one stringed Diddley Bow, along with his 1950s Fender Tweed Deluxe amp and an assortment of battered old mics. Oh, and we must forget his faithful MDM, a small wooden box he stamps on. Steve himself (with help from Roy Williams) recorded, engineered and produced the entire album at Blackbird Studios in Nashville. Once again, Steve has managed to infuse his songs with the kind of grit and tenderness that we originally fell in love with. His songs invariably refer to things close to him, or events and people from his worldly, but simple, past.
There’s plenty of freewheeling showboating on opener Diddley Bo a hymn to his trusty one string with sticksman Dan Magnusson having a wail of a time performing like a man possessed and perfect foil for Seasick. Things are equally raucous on his tribute to his John Deere tractor – Big Green And Yeller, the colours of said tractor. Despite his new found wealth our Steve declares, “Don’t need no Ferrari / No Porsche too / Big green and yella / For me that gonna do”. Then things are much simpler on the acoustic blues of Happy (To Have A Job) though the spirit of the south is all there, full of slide frenzy. Banjo Song brings out his reflective moments as he deeply considers his own mortality while he simply plucks a banjo, of course. And on the title track, he reflects further, now that he’s reached the age of seeing things clearer from his past, again revisited via Just Because I Can as he laments (or celebrates) his time riding the rails in his youth, accompanied by some fine bottle-neck slide work. The choogle of Wenatchee, musically anyway, breaks the mood, though there has to be some autobiographical references made. We can only assume My Home (Blue Eyes) refers to his wife of 27 years – Elizabeth. The hobo celebrates his affection by saying, ”’cause my home is where your blue eyes are / And my town is where your brown hair falls.” After a raucous Seasick Boogie and studio chatter, there’s a gorgeous hidden track – a cover of Hank Williams’s I’m So Lonely– featuring solos by songbird Amy La Vere. The verdict – Worth every penny.
Weblink: seasicksteve
The full list of tracks included are :
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B 37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier. PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
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Review & concert pics copyright © Elly Roberts, 2004-2010.
