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I Started Out With Nothin And I Still Got Most Of It Left
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34 new or used available from £4.78
Average customer review:
Track Listing
- Started Out With Nothin'
- Walkin' Man
- St Louis Slim
- Happy Man
- Prospect Lane
- Thunderbird
- Fly By Night
- Just Like A King
- One True
- Chiggers
- My Youth
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #2708 in Music
- Released on: 2008-09-29
- Number of discs: 1
- Dimensions: .12 pounds
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.co.uk Review
The most unlikely of stars, sixty-something Seasick Steve Wold might have started out with nothin', but these days he can headline the Royal Albert Hall. The second solo album from the much travelled bluesman (and, let's not forget, studio owner--he didn't suddenly step off a boxcar with a demo tape in hand--refines the sound that made 2006's Dog House Music so instantly appealing. Guests include Ruby Turner, KT Tunstall (playing rather than singing) and Nick Cave and Grinderman--Cave and Steve duet on their collaboration "Just Like a King". The title track, "Started out With Nothin'", is as catchy as it is wise, "One True" laments Steve's late dog ("my one true friend", of course) and the catchy full-band "Happy Man", featuring Turner and Tunstall is as near as Seasick gets to offering a single. Without the visual impact of seeing an elderly man tell travel stories in between torturing a three string guitar while kicking a wooden box, I Started out With Nothin' and I Still Got Most of It Left can only offer a simulacrum of his live show, but his crude appeal remains obvious even as his sound gets smoother. --Steve Jelbert
CD Description
After being nominated for 'Best Live Act' at 2008's Mojo awards and winning 'Best Breakthrough Act' in 2007, Seasick Steve returns with his 3rd full-length studio album. Taught toplay guitar by the highly respected blues guitarist K.C. Douglas and famous for playing his 3 stringed guitar and stamping on a wooden box he calls the 'Mississippi Drum Machine',Seastick Steve's up-tempo blues has proved a surprise hit in the UK.
About the Artist
.... "Every time I walk out in front of these thousands of people, think ` Goddamn, how can someone who's not young, and didn't used to be famous already have all this success out of the blue?' My belief is I've come at the right time. People are tired of everythin' bein' so fancy. I guess they kinda like hearin' me with an acoustic guitar stompin' on a box." Seasick Steve
Customer Reviews
Pretty good, but a big step backwards!
Seasick Steve is a fantastic bluesman, I'm a huge fan, and I listen to Doghouse Music constantly, but I'm really sorry to say that this album just doesn't quite do it for me.
Doghouse Music is a superb album - simple, straightforward, totally un-produced and packed with real feeling and passion. Thats what Seasick Steve means to me - his views and experiences of a different world, (one I hope I'll never know) are powerful and honest, and he can really play that guitar too.
It was obvious that this album would be more commercial, more produced, because Steve is now a massive worldwide phenomenon (rightly so) and so there is alot more at stake. There are some great tracks on this record, and Steve does his best to shine through, but the band are wrong for him, the arrangements are wrong for him, and the mix is wrong for him too! If you listen really carefully, you can hear the fantastic rolling rhythms of doghouse music in the guitar riffs, but almost every song is drenched in bass and drums, and it is they who set the rhythm, NOT Steve! At times you have to strain to hear his guitar at all, due to the terrible mix, and even the vocals are too quiet on several numbers.
For me the problem is that this is just a blues record with Seasick Steve in the band. If you took him away, all you would have is a bunch of session players jamming the blues, and since he's drowning in the mix half the time, thats all you have got on some of the tracks. No band can ever accompany Steve as well as he can accompany himself, and with such a polished, managed sound it ends up sounding rather clinical. A waste of a unique talent!
On the other hand, Steve seems happy with it, so good luck to him...but it just isn't anything like what I was hoping for.
Big label, but still the same old Steve
This is Seasick Steve's first release on a major label, Warner Brothers, to which he has moved from his previous home at Bronzerat. The album shows one or two signs of this change. Most obviously, the sound is a bit less raw than it was on Dog House Blues. Be reassured though: everything that makes Steve special is still here.
The album includes the usual blues stomps, played on a variety of (largely ratty) guitars. Steve attacks these vigorously, with his guitar playing sounding haphazard and note-perfect at the same time. There are also a couple of ballads, including the truly delightful "Walking man", with Steve's voice at its gentlest and mellowest. There are even a couple of pretty good covers, including the old Box Tops hit The Letter and the blues standard Rolling and Tumbling.
There are a few guest musicians on the album: Nick Cave's Grinderman on one track, and a couple of girl singers on another. I don't think Steve needs the help, and I'd be worried if he continued down that track. Still, this is a feelgood album by a real musician. Buy it, and if you possibly can, go see him in concert!
This is the blues,uncluttered and beautifully played !
One thing you have to say about Seasick Steve is he plays the blues,he plays it well.So many have come into the blues in recent years ,rocked it up and done more harm than good until rock-blues is so far removed from its roots that its hard to see where it came from.SSS may not be an original but he's brought the blues back home without taking the heart out of it.This album is pure blues,great songs ,played well,with a whole lot of heart and soul in it,and that's what counts and Steve does it all so well.If you like this then go and listen to originals like R L Burnside or Junior Kimbrough,both from the Mississippi hill country.But I'' say one thing Steve is right in there with them,and he's doing a tremendous job for the blues,and to get on a major label doing it that's just spot on.This is a great blues album,hold od though,this is purely one great album by an international treasure so get it,enjoy it because this is what the blues is all about.Oh and credit to both K.T.Tunstall and Nick Cave and Griderman your just the ticket on this very very fine album.
