Seasick Steve
(Bronzerat)
It's getting to the point Blurt almost needs a daily column to keep up with the latest "unlikeliest success (or comeback)" story. So far this year has already brought us Anvil, Susan Boyle, Leonard Cohen's sold-out tours, and the Bert Jansch revival. Now here comes Seasick Steve (Steve Wold), a heavy-drinking, primal-sounding American punk-bluesman who, after a life of wanderlust and near-poverty, in his mid-60s has managed to focus himself enough to release a hit album (in Norway, where he had moved with his Norwegian wife). He then took England by storm - becoming a huge concert draw, playing Royal Albert Hall, befriending Nick Cave, being featured on the BBC, and getting nominated for a Brit music award as Best International Male. But not before recovering from a severe heart attack.
The songs on the largely solo Dog House Music, first issued in Norway in 2006 and now getting its U.S. release, are autobiographical observations sung with a weary-voiced sense of resignation ("Shirly Lou") that at key moments ("Things Go Up," "Last Po' Man," "Dog House Boogie") is replaced with the trancelike, rockin' intensity of a John Lee Hooker or Junior Kimbrough. Wold also is an amusing storyteller, as the hidden final track "12 Dog Blues" shows. His playing of various acoustic and amplified stringed instruments - including a three-stringed guitar and a Diddley bow - has strength and intensity.
It will be interesting to see how Wold does in the States, where there is no shortage of middle-aged, blues-oriented musicians still finding their voice (Malcolm Holcombe and Otis Taylor, for instance) whose songwriting is more complex than his. But Wold - who, while based in Washington State in the 1990s, did studio work for the post-punk grunge acts - does prove one thing. The punk/post-punk lifestyle, intensely lived, is a legitimate preparation for the observations of a wizened, tough-but-tender older bluesman.
Standout Tracks: "Things Go Up," "Shirly Lou" STEVEN ROSEN
