Three string blues (Dog House Music - Seasick Steve)

Member Name: paulhanton

Product:	Dog House Music - Seasick Steve
Date:	12/04/09 (347 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Foot tapping intro to Blues

Disadvantages: Not enough good stuff

Dog House Music - Seasick Steve (2006).

I first saw Seasick Steve on the Jools Holland show. Now I am no great fan of the blues, the genre is okay, but I'm not mad keen on blues. So when I saw this old hobo like white guy (he's 68 at least) with a long beard and soapbox (yep really) set up a three string guitar and start playing I was stunned at how much I like it.

Off I went to iTunes and downloaded this, his first studio album, and later his 2nd album.

This is a quite mad album; from the first track which I have to say, needs some serious, professional sound work, we have an idea that this guy does not take himself all that seriously.

Now I do not know enough about 'The Blues' to give the level of opinion that I might about jazz, punk, rap or reggae, but I know I got quite hooked by a few songs on this album. The first track aint so good and to me that is more about sound quality and pace than anything else, it is almost like fast rock blues, not my thing.

The 2nd track is more like trad blues and I do like it, but even this pales into comparison to track three 'Cut my wings' which to me is the best track on the album. There is a bit of nonsense at the beginning with him trying to plug his amp in etc. then what we get is probably one of the most foot tapping beats I have ever experienced. the lyrics are very bluesy (of course), but it is the guitar that almost talks, well, screams, that makes this song. It is a piece of heaven, he gets almost trance like in the music and for a three minute track it has everything: structure, a beginning, middle, end, great riffs, great chorus and the beat, man, the beat.

The next track is a little old fashioned for me but then we get 'Dog House Boogie' which is almost funk like in its beat, and he howls like a wolf, great fun, great track.

We have pretty standard blues after that then we get 'Last po' man' which has a touch of the Ray Charles about it, very nice, very listenable.

After that we get a more melodic offering with the ballad like Salem Blues, which is ultra relaxing, followed by the last (not) track, which turns into a 'hidden' track, I hate that, and it is not that good either, pretty much a story about a dog, I kid you not.

Overall, this is certainly not going to be to everyones taste, in fact the whole album is not to my taste but it achieves three things in my opinion:

1. Gives us a couple of really nice introductory blues songs (I have gone on to listen to much more blues since this)

2. Makes the listener smile, always a good thing.

3. Gets the foot tapping.

If you do not want the whole album, at least download tracks; 3, 11, 12. This is not the best album in the World and is certainly not the best Blues album out there, which is why it only gets two stars (his next album is much better), but it is different and okay.

1 Yellow Dog
2 Things Go Up
3 Cut My Wings
4 Fallen Off a Rock
5 Dog House Boogie
6 Save Me
7 Hobo Low
8 Shirly Lou
9 My Donny
10 The Dead Song
11 Last Po' Man
12 Salem Blues
13 I'm Gone (plus 'hidden' track)
12 Dog Blues" (hidden track) - 11:04

Summary: Seasick Steve