I Started Out With Nothin And I Still Got Most Of It Left

No wonder he’s got the blues, as the desolate but archly titled ‘I Started Out With Nothing And I Still Got Most Of It Left’ suggests. Happily we’re not in danger of being taken downtown by the Music Police for crimes against authenticity here and this is no ‘Oh Brother Where Art Thou’ rehash either. "The kids who come to my shows don't know nothin' about Charley Patton or Son House. They just know it rocks”, he explains, a statement 7digital saw with our own eyes back in July, as he tore-up Latitude, necking whiskey with red wine chasers.

Dr John, JJ Cale and Howlin’ Wolf are obvious touchstones but Steve proves to be as happening now as if he was jamming with John Lee Hooker in Mississippi 50 years ago. Long-term collaborator KT Tunstall is absent, but the splintered slide guitar junk of ‘St Louis Slim’ could easily have featured Jack White, while Nick Cave and Grinderman guest on ‘Just Like A King’. Elsewhere, we have songs about heavy drinking (‘Thunderbird’), dead dogs (‘One True’) and riding trains (‘Prospect Lane’), all of which suggest Seasick Steve’s years of hobo pain will always be our gain.