THERE’S a lot to enjoy about Seasick Steve. For a start he looks like the coolest grandfather ever, with his eyes squinting under that cap, and the wizard straggle of beard. And all that’s before he even picks up one of his guitars, which he may well have made himself from scrapyard bits and pieces.
At 73, Seasick really is a soul surfer as the title of his most coherent album yet suggests. While the music is still rough and ready in an honest-to-God, dirty-fingernail way, the songs here all hang together well and suggest what in a younger man you might dare call maturity.
That’s not so say that Seasick has turned the volume down, certainly not at the start. Opener Roy’s Gang comes on like junk-yard Hendrix, all chugging rhythms and howling vocals. The song conjures a mental image of Seasick having an uptight young neighbour who asks the septuagenarian to turn down the volume. A foolish fancy, perhaps, as fans of all ages seem to warm to Steve. Many of the songs follow a similar template, with unyielding beats, occasional bursts of guitar and Steve doing, as it says on the sleeve, “hollerin’ and assorted string things”.
If this joyful racket can sometimes seem a bit much, Seasick offers variety on softer songs, such as the lovely Right On Time, or turns folky on the equally affecting In Peaceful Dreams, with mountain fiddle by Georgina Leach.
Perhaps best of all, though, is the carefree anthem Summertime Boy, which stands in contrast to the more reflective closing track, Heart Full Of Scars, with its lifetime’s shopping list of emotional knocks.
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