Seasick Steve

Steven Gene Wold (né Leach, 19 March 1951),California Birth Index, 1905-1995. Sacramento, CA, USA: State of California Department of Health Services, Center for Health Statistics, ''Ancestry.com''
Retrieved August 4, 2019 commonly known as Seasick Steve, is an American blues musician. He plays mostly personalized guitars and sings, usually about his early life doing casual work. From the late 1960s, he worked as a musician and recording engineer in the US and Europe; he played bass in Shanti and was in a disco band called Crystal Grass as well as other bands. He also pursued other works, including producing an album for Modest Mouse. He achieved his breakthrough, initially in the UK, at the end of 2006 when he appeared on Jools Holland's annual ''Hootenanny'' as Seasick Steve. He has since released a number of commercially successful albums, including ''I Started Out with Nothin and I Still Got Most of It Left'', ''Man from Another Time'', and ''Sonic Soul Surfer''.

Life and career

The publicity about Wold at the time he first became successful in Britain, in the mid-2000s, suggested that he was then aged in his sixties, and emphasised his past as a hobo in Tennessee and Mississippi. In a 2008 interview in Memphis, Wold was quoted as stating: "I came down here as a young feller looking for the blues, but I didn't find them... Wasn't in Clarksdale but an hour before a big, old redneck policeman ran me right out of town again. That was how it was back then, and there were some places hereabouts you just didn't go if you were a hobo." By his own account, he would travel long distances by hopping freight trains, looking for work as a farm laborer or in other seasonal jobs.Op de Beeck, p. 159 He claimed that he had worked at a carnival, as a cowboy and as a migrant worker.On the BBC Four documentary ''Seasick Steve: Bringing It All Back Home'' In a 2007 interview, he said: "I rode them /nowiki>freight_trains.html" ;"title="freight_trains.html" ;"title="/nowiki>freight trains">/nowiki>freight trains">freight_trains.html" ;"title="/nowiki>freight trains">/nowiki>freight trains/nowiki> for 14 years off and on..", adding "I've been married to this one girl for 25 years, so I’m a little bit settled down now..." Mike Butler, "Seasick Steve 2007 Interview", ''Dyverse Music'', 9 January 2010
Retrieved 19 August 2019

In 2016, an unauthorized biography by Matthew Wright presented evidence that parts of Wold's backstory may have been exaggerated. Matthew Wright, "Seasick Steve – A Myth Unravels", ''The Arts Desk'', 7 June 2016
Retrieved 19 August 2019 Wright drew on interviews with Wold's estranged eldest son as well as previously published material covering his career in music since the late 1960s, and commented that Wold was "retiring about facts of his own life".

Childhood and early life

Steve Wold was born in Oakland, California, as Steven Gene Leach, though his biographer suggests that he may have been adopted as a baby. He took the surname Wold in the early 1980s, from that of his second wife. In 2000, he gave his age as 50, though later publicity implied that he was older. Official birth records confirm his birth year as 1951.

When he was four years old, his parents split up and he continued to live with his mother. He claimed that as a child he was taught to play the guitar by K. C. Douglas, who worked at his grandfather's garage, and later realised that he had been taught the blues. 15 Oct 2008 Douglas wrote the song "Mercury Blues" and had played with Tommy Johnson in the early 1940s.Harris, S (1989). Blues Who's Who, 5th paperback edition. New York, Da Capo Press, pp. 160-161 His mother remarried, to a Korean War veteran who Wold characterized as abusive, and, at the age of about 13, Wold claimed that he left home following a violent confrontation with his stepfather.

Wold claimed to have lived rough and on the road in Tennessee, Mississippi and elsewhere, until at least the late 1960s. Kenyon Hopkin, "Seasick Steve"
''AllMusic''. Retrieved 14 August 2019 However, Wright's biography claims that Wold lived in Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, for some time from 1965. He attended the Monterey Pop Festival, regularly saw bands such as The Grateful Dead perform in the area, and became acquainted with Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix.

Early musical activities

In about 1969, he toured clubs in the region as a backing musician with Lightnin' Hopkins. In 1970, as Steve Leach, he became the bass player in an innovative band, Shanti, who performed a fusion of Indian and rock music. Other band members included Zakir Hussain and Aashish Khan, and all the band members were adherents of Transcendental Meditation. In liner notes for a 2015 reissue of Shanti's only album, writer Richie Unterberger states that "bassist Steve Leach has reinvented himself as the blues musician Seasick Steve",Wright, 2016, pp. 83-84 and his participation in Shanti was confirmed by Seattle band the Tremens.

He left California in 1972 and moved to Paris, France, where he busked in the Métro. He occasionally returned to California where he married Victoria Johnson in 1974; they had two sons together but later divorced. Wold also spent time in the 1970s in Hawaii, and worked as a session musician and studio engineer, as well as in occasional manual jobs. He has claimed to have played with other musicians including Son House, John Lee Hooker, Albert King, and Joni Mitchell around this time. In 1976, he worked with French producer Lee Hallyday and fronted the disco group Crystal Grass. Leach appeared on two Crystal Grass albums released by Philips Records in France, ''Dance Up a Storm'' and ''Ocean Potion'', the latter credited to Steve Leach with the Crystal Grass Orchestra. The group also released several singles including "You Can Be What You Dream". He also sang on the first album released by Mike Love's side project Celebration, a collaboration with members of the Paris-based band King Harvest.

Around 1980, Steve Leach returned to Europe. In 1982, he appeared as singer and guitarist on an album, ''Women and Sports'', by the band Clean, Athletic & Talented (C.A.T.), co-writing their single "I Love To Touch Young Girls". He met Elisabeth Wold in a blues bar in Oslo, Norway, and adopted her surname after she became his second wife. For a time in the early 1980s, he lived in London, and then with Elisabeth in Skelmersdale, England, which biographer Wright notes is the location of a major Transcendental Meditation movement center. He later claimed to have run a recording studio in Europe before selling it.

After returning to the US, he trained as a paramedic, before moving with his wife and their three sons from Nashville, Tennessee, to Olympia, near Seattle, in 1991. The move was partly motivated by Elisabeth Wold's desire to live in an area reminiscent of her native Norway, but also reflected the area's developing indie music scene. In Olympia, Wold established his own guitar store and recording studio, Moon Music. He was acquainted with Kurt Cobain, and began producing records by local musicians, including Kathleen Hanna and Fitz of Depression. Wold produced the 1996 debut album by Modest Mouse, ''This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About'', and recordings by the band P.E.Z. on which he played guitar. He also worked closely with a local band, the Tremens, and with them started to form a band, Dr Steel and the Forty-nines, with himself as singer and lead guitarist, but this fell through. A 2001 interview with the Tremens described Wold as a "Pacific Northwest music icon... who has put his recording stamp on some of the most influential bands to come out of Puget Sound.""The Tremens", ''EarPollution'', April 2001
Retrieved 19 August 2019

In 2001, Wold closed Moon Music, after being involved in up to 50 albums made there. He said at the time: "I'm finished with America. I'm 50 years old now, and I've been watching greed play the main stage since I was a teenager. I just can't stand it anymore." Rick Levin, "Reluctant Icon: Goodbye to Moon Music", ''The Stranger'', 21 December 2000
Retrieved 19 August 2019 With his wife and their sons, he moved to Notodden in Norway, home of the Notodden Blues Festival, and set up a studio, Juke Joint, with vintage equipment that he had acquired over the years. After Wold became ill on a boat trip between Norway and Denmark, he adopted the name "Seasick Steve" as a parallel to that of blues musician Homesick James, and started to form a band, Seasick Steve and the Level Devils.

Wold released his first album, entitled ''Cheap'', recorded with the Level Devils as his rhythm section, with Jo Husmo on stand-up bass and Kai Christoffersen on drums. His debut solo album, ''Dog House Music'' was released by Bronzerat Records on 26 November 2006, after he was championed by an old friend, Joe Cushley, DJ on the ''Balling The Jack'' blues show on London radio station Resonance FM.

Breakthrough and subsequent career

Wold made his first UK television appearance on Jools Holland's annual ''Hootenanny'' BBC TV show on New Year's Eve 2006. He performed a live rendition of "Dog House Boogie" on the "Three String Trance Wonder" and the "Mississippi Drum Machine". After that show his popularity exploded in Britain, and he commented "I can't believe it, all of the sudden I'm like the cat's meow!"

He was well received in the UK, winning the 2007 MOJO Award for Best Breakthrough Act and going on to appear at major UK festivals such as Reading, Leeds and Glastonbury. In 2007 he played more UK festivals than any other artist. At that time, it was claimed in press coverage that he was 66 years old, though he was later demonstrated to be ten years younger.

Wold toured early in 2008, playing in various venues and festivals in the UK. He was joined on stage by drummer Dan Magnusson. KT Tunstall also dueted with Wold at the London Astoria in January 2008.Raucous night of hobo blues
This is London, 25 Jan 2008 Wold also played many other festivals throughout the world in 2008, including Fuji Rock in Japan, East Coast Blues & Roots Music Festival in Australia, also in April 2008, and Roskilde in Denmark.

Wold's major-label debut, ''I Started Out with Nothin and I Still Got Most of It Left'' was recorded with Dan Magnusson on drums, was released by Warner Music on 29 September 2008, and features Ruby Turner and Nick Cave's Grinderman.

He has toured the UK extensively since 2007 being supported by performers including Duke Garwood, Gemma Ray, Billie the Vision and the Dancers, Amy LaVere, Melody Nelson and Joe Gideon & The Shark. His tours in October 2008 and January 2009 were all sold out and included performances at the Royal Albert Hall, the Edinburgh Queen's Hall, the Grand Opera House in Belfast, the Apollo in Manchester, the City Hall in Newcastle and the London Hammersmith Apollo.

In 2009, Wold was nominated for a Brit Award in the category of International Solo Male Artist,
That same year, BBC Four broadcast a documentary of Wold visiting the southern USA entitled ''Seasick Steve: Bringing It All Back Home''. On 21 January, Wold hosted "Folk America: Hollerers, Stompers and Old Time Ramblers" at the Barbican in London, a show that was also televised and shown with the documentary on BBC Four as part of a series tracing American roots music.

In an interview with an Australian magazine, Wold attributed much of his unlikely success to his cheap and weather-beaten guitar, "The Trance Wonder" and reveals the guitar's mojo might come from supernatural sources.

I got it from Sherman, who is a friend of mine down in Mississippi, who had bought it down at a Goodwill store. When we were down there last time he says to me, 'I didn't tell you when you bought it off me, but that guitar used to be haunted'. I say, 'What are you talking about, Sherman?'. He says, 'There's 50 solid citizens here in Como who'll tell you this guitar is haunted. It's the darnedest thing – we'd leave it over in the potato barn and we'd come back in and it would be moved. You'd put it down somewhere and the next morning you'd come back and it would have moved. When you took that guitar the ghost in the barn left'. He told me this not very long ago and I said to him, 'Sherman! Why didn't you tell me this before?' and he said, 'Well the ghost was gone – I didn't want it around here no more!'

On 3 January 2010, Wold appeared on the popular BBC
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