Matthew Wright - Seasick Steve--Ramblin Man

I t remains one of the most remarkable breakthroughs in music history. Until New Years Eve 2006, self-styled hobo-blues musician Steven Gene Wold, playing a beat-up, three-string guitar (a.k.a. the Three-String Trance Wonder, or the biggest piece of shit in the world) and stomping on a wooden box with a Mississippi motorcycle plate stuck on it (the Mississippi Drum Machine), was known only to a tiny community of blues fans. Hed recorded his second album, Dog House Music, on an ancient four-track recorder in his kitchen at home in the provincial Norwegian town of Notodden, with only two of his sons for occasional accompaniment.

When he appeared on Jools Hollands Annual Hootenanny show that New Years Eve, Seasick Steve had but two solo albums and a cult fanbase to his name. He was fortunate in having the support of Resonance FM DJ and alternative blues expert Joe Cushley, who had played a crucial role both in encouraging Steve to release the album at all, and then disseminating it among the right musical channels. That said, it doesnt sound as though either Steve or Joe Cushley had any idea what Joes best efforts would achieve.

Its still hard to take it all in. Steves vintage recording studio had been reasonably successful on the grunge scene in Olympia, near Seattle, in the 1990s, but had not proved a success when he took it with him to Notodden. He had recorded Cheap with the Level Devils in 2002, and released it on his own label in 2004. Meanwhile, he was recuperating from a heart attack. In the two years leading up to his breakthrough, he had begun to build up a small following (including the music journalists Charlie Gillett and Mark Ellen) with a series of gigs at the 12 Bar Club in Denmark Street, Soho. Perhaps he could make a modest, late career as a niche performer? For someone of his age, to all intents and purposes washed up professionally speaking, anyway to appear at all on Jools Hollands show was incredible. For him to have so much success, so quickly, and for it to last so long, breaks records left, right and centre.

Hes explained the story in detail only a couple of times. If you like hearing Steves voice he is a good storyteller the fullest video account comes in an interview (available on YouTube) that he gave to Rebecca Villiger of Swiss channel SRF 3 in July 2014, recorded while he was in Bern, performing at the Gurtenfestival. It reads at first like a particularly long-winded joke involving three stereotypes walking into a bar, but the ending is much better.

I had a heart attack, I was real sick, and nobody was asking me to play anywhere, not even at the bar down the street. Because of that, I ended up making this record for my wife, not for people, recorded in my kitchen with a tape recorder and two mics. This friend of mine in England [Joe Cushley] called me up to see how I was doing from being sick.

He goes, What are you doing, Steve? And I go, Well, Im in my kitchen, making some songs for my wife. He goes, I really want to hear it. I go, No, man, this is nothing. Matter of fact, its bad. And he goes, Oh, send it to me, send it to me! So I sent it to him, and he goes, Oh, this is wonderful! And he gave it somebody else, who used to drive bands around. And one day, this band driver took a band to the Jools Holland show, which is a big show in England. And he saw who the producer was, he had the CD in his back pocket, and he go over and give it to the producer. The guy listened to it, and goes, We need to have him on our show.

Theres a little more information in the account Steve gave to Thomas H Green of The Arts Desk in June 2011, which contains the names that matter. Its still an astonishing concatenation of good fortune and coincidence, which reads more like the synopsis of a madcap farce than the plans for the release of a record-breaking album.

He [Joe Cushley] asked a few people but no one was interested but this guy Andy [Zammit, the band driver mentioned above], he had a little record company [Bronzerat] putting out records by his girlfriend [Gemma Ray]. Joe told me hed love to put my record out. I wasnt so interested any more but I called Andy and said, I dont care what you do but have you got any money to put it out? He didnt, so I said, How are you going to put it out then? He borrowed 1,000 from his sister and printed up 900 CDs. Now both Mark Ellen [editor of the now-defunct Word magazine] and Charlie Gillett [radio presenter] told [Later with Jools Holland producer] Mark Cooper about me I didnt know about any of this at the time. Andy was driving bands around and he took [American singer-songwriter] Richard Swift to the Jools Holland show and Richard Swift mentioned me to Mark Cooper one more time so they said, Yeah, wed like to see him play.

On the night, Steve looked uncomfortable as he started singing Dog House Boogie, the title track of his latest album, squinting into what he later said was a blinding stage light. But the audience went wild. It was Steves first appearance as a soloist on any stage remotely this big. He shared the bill that night with much more glitzy and experienced musicians, including Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse, but his novelty and charisma stole the show.

That performance of Dog House Boogie before the dumbstruck Hootenanny audience projected Seasick Steve from kitchen performer into the big league. Dog House Music sold out overnight. Steves website which he claims had a total of about seventy-five hits before the broadcast, sixty of them from himself crashed, with over a hundred thousand hits by the following morning, and 1,750,000 within the week. The year 2007 brought success beyond his wildest dreams: a MOJO Award for Best Breakthrough Act, and festival appearances at Reading, Leeds and Glastonbury; more gigs, its said, than any other major artist that year.

The festivals built up. In 2008, his major label debut arrived: I Started Out With Nothin and I Still Got Most of It Left, released on Warner Bros. The following year, there was a Brit Award nomination (International Solo Male Artist) and a BBC Four documentary entitled (slightly misleadingly, as it turns out) Seasick Steve: Bringing It All Back Home, in which Steve visits places in Mississippi. The rest, as they say, is history.

For both professional reviewers and regular fans, its Steves perceived authenticity and raw emotional truth that earned Dog House Music such instant acclaim. Hes such a captivating storyteller that his listeners assume the events all happened to him exactly as described and that, in a way, has become a problem. James McNair, writing mainly about Steves 2013 release Hubcap Music in The Independent in April 2013, noted, One could argue that a key component of Wolds magnetism is that much-coveted commodity, authenticity. The candid, sometimes picaresque lyrics of his autobiographical songs seem hard-won

Jon Lusk, reviewing for the BBC website, comments on Steves authentic southern atmosphere and declares that this guys the real thing. (Not many other professional reviews exist of Dog House Music: it seems most publications wanted to wait for the success of Steves festival appearances to ensure it was worth their while. Its after that that the glowing double-page features begin.) But in both cases Steves superlative performance leads listeners to a misleading assumption.

The customer reviews on Amazon, where the album has a rating of 4.7 out of 5, confirm that it is this quality that has created such a loyal and adoring fanbase. Again and again, its the sense of truth and authenticity, both to the traditions of the blues and Steves own raw emotional state, that listeners perceive in his music. Seasick Steve has lived the blues in the old tradition. His blues is raw and he is the real deal, says one. His Mississippi roots shine through each and every song, says another. If youre a true fan of Delta blues you will love this album. Its raw, refreshing, and as authentic as Mississippi mud. The adulation is almost dare one say it? quasi-religious. His live gigs are joyously fervent affairs akin to a revivalist prayer meeting, but without all the god-nonsense, says another fan.