A tramp. A ragamuffin. An urchin: Seasick Steve

Finding new music that holds up over time, for me, is no easy task. When I listen to some of the CDs I bought within the past five years, I actually feel shame. Not surprisingly, I prefer the extra-auricular bleeding that occurs when listening to some of those bands over the shame I sometimes feel. So when I come across something new, I get really excited. One such band is Iron Maiden. But that will have to wait for another time.

I somehow stumbled upon this vagrant named Seasick Steve. He's just a blue collar guy from the Delta who happened to wow the Brits with his bluesy, gritty, good ol' boy strumming. Why the Brits? Somehow, like a true vagabond, he just landed there. And what of this strumming? This is where Steve gets interesting. He mainly plays a three-stringed guitar and those strings aren't in the right place or tuned properly. On other occasions, he plays a diddley bo or a cigar box guitar. No matter what he's playing, there's usually a slide involved as well as his "Mississippi drum machine", which is just a wooden box with a few holes and some binding.

If you've not already heard or heard of Seasick Steve, you pretty much get the picture of what you're going to hear by how I've described him. I can guarantee that when you listen to him, you'll soon notice that I wasn't even close. On the other hand, if you are already familiar with him, I'm telling you something you already know.

Below are two of his CDs, "I started out with nothing and I still got most of it left" and "Man from another time."