Seasick Steve

Steven Gene Wold (né Leach; March 19, 1951), commonly known as Seasick Steve, is an American blues musician. He plays mostly personalized guitars and sings, usually about his early life doing casual work. From the late 1960s, he worked as a musician and recording engineer in the US and Europe; he played bass in Shanti and was in a disco band called Crystal Grass as well as other bands. He also pursued other works, including producing an album for Modest Mouse. He achieved his breakthrough, initially in the UK, at the end of 2006 when he appeared on Jools Holland's annual Hootenanny as Seasick Steve. He has since released a number of commercially successful albums, including I Started Out with Nothin and I Still Got Most of It Left, Man from Another Time, and Sonic Soul Surfer.

Life and career

The publicity about Wold at the time he first became successful in Britain, in the mid-2000s, suggested that he was then aged in his sixties, and emphasised his past as a hobo in Tennessee and Mississippi. In a 2008 interview in Memphis, Wold was quoted as stating: "I came down here as a young feller looking for the blues, but I didn't find them... Wasn't in Clarksdale but an hour before a big, old redneck policeman ran me right out of town again. That was how it was back then, and there were some places hereabouts you just didn't go if you were a hobo." By his own account, he would travel long distances by hopping freight trains, looking for work as a farm laborer or in other seasonal jobs. He claimed that he had worked at a carnival, as a cowboy and as a migrant worker. In a 2007 interview, he said: "I rode them [freight trains] for 14 years off and on..", adding "I've been married to this one girl for 25 years, so I’m a little bit settled down now..."