Seasick Steve

Californian singer/guitarist Seasick Steve had to go all the way to Europe to become one of the 21st century’s most popular practitioners of old-school blues. Born Steven Leach in Oakland in 1951, he learned blues guitar as a child, beginning a long, strange journey that would take him through multiple sides of the music business. Conflicting accounts of his early life and career exist, but he definitely played bass in Shanti, a band blending raga and rock who released an album on Atlantic in 1971. He later played with the disco band Crystal Grass and led an itinerant existence, working a series of jobs in a long line of places. In the ’90s, having changed his surname to Wold, he opened a recording studio in Olympia, WA, where he became a mainstay of the indie-rock scene, producing Modest Mouse and others. After moving to Norway in 2001, he began establishing himself as a raw, minimalist bluesman, inspired heavily by the Mississippi hill country blues. He released his first album in 2004, and a 2006 BBC TV appearance rocketed him to renown. Sometimes playing solo acoustic and sometimes with a rocking electric band, he often uses quirky handmade instruments, like guitars made from hubcaps. Over the years, he has been accompanied on his recordings by Nick Cave, Jack White, John Paul Jones, and other luminaries, as he blends pure blues with raucous rock energy.