Seasick Steve, Hammersmith Apollo

Seasick Steve is, as his fourth album puts it, a Man From Another Time. To listen to his tales of train-hopping itinerancy is to be transported to a now-distant America, albeit one which Steve really did experience.
His music is similarly anachronistic; on guitars called things like ‘The One-Stringed Diddley Bow’ and a box called ‘The Mississippi Drum Machine’, he creates a sound that proudly casts itself in the American blues tradition. However, none of this is to Seasick Steve’s discredit; he is a natural raconteur and his songs are lively and impassioned.
The story of Seasick Steve’s rise to fame is now the stuff of legend, and whilst both the media and Steve’s lyrics focus on his early years spent travelling across America, he also spent much of his life as a sound engineer and producer.
It was his 2006 album Dog House Music, however, that ensured Steve’s breakthrough as a musician in his own right. The album was justifiably well received; tracks like ‘Dog House Boogie’ and ‘Cut My Wings’ are compellingly raucous, the percussive guitar-work more than compensating for the absence of a more traditional rhythm section.
Since Dog House Music, Steve has released a further five albums; his most recent album, 2015’s Sonic Soul Surfer retained the distinctive slide guitar which made earlier releases so compelling, but offered more expansive instrumentation and plenty of effects pedals. There isn’t much variation: boogie, blues and mythology of a bygone America. But when the material is this good, that isn’t a problem at all.
His live shows are famed for their energy and intimacy and his performance at Eventim Apollo on April 14 is set to be no exception.