Seasick Steve
When: 17th November 2024
Location: O2 Academy
Seasick Steve is the hobo turned maverick blues man. Coming to Glasgow’s O2 Academy on 17th November 2024.
Born in Oakland, Steven Gene Leach spent his childhood in California during the ’50s. He left home by the time he was a teenager and lived the life of a panhandler on the road travelling America. Leach spent time in Mississippi, Tennessee and the Midwest, where he began to pick up instruments like guitar and harmonica.
In the late ’60s, he settled down again for a time in Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco. He found himself drawn to blues, folk and rock artists. Regularly attending the Monterey Pop Festival, he was inspired by Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and The Grateful Dead.
1970
By 1970, Leach was playing bass in the band Shanti. Throughout this decade – which saw him married and divorced – he travelled as far away as Paris. But continued to return to California where he played and collaborated with musicians such as John Lee Hooker, Joni Mitchell and Mike Love.
Leach met his second wife, Elisabeth Wold, in a blues bar in Norway in the early ’80s. And eventually adopted her surname. For much of this decade he lived and created music in Europe, where he owned a recording studio for a time.
By the ‘90s, he brought his family back to the US and settled near Seattle. Establishing a guitar store and the Moon Music recording studio, through which he began producing music by local acts including Modest Mouse.
He closed the studio in 2001 and returned to Norway, where he formed the band Seasick Steve And The Level Devils. His new name was chosen after becoming ill during a boat trip to Denmark. Their debut album Cheap came out in 2004. Two years later, he got rid of the band and released his first solo album Dog House Music.
2006
At the end of 2006, Steve performed ‘Dog House Boogie’ on Jools Holland’s Annual Hootenanny. Which caused a massive stir on UK soil, propelling him into an international act in demand.
In 2008, Seasick Steve’s follow-up I Started Out With Nothin And I Still Got Most Of It Left peaked at No.9 on the UK albums chart. It featured guest artists like KT Tunstall as well as a collaboration with Nick Cave on the track Just Like A King.
With a reputation not only for being an incredible blues performer, but also for the ability to rock out instruments made of anything (from his favourite “three-stringed trance wonder” to a hubcap guitar), Seasick Steve released six more albums over the next decade. Four of them – 2009’s Man From Another Time, 2011’s You Can’t Teach An Old Dog New Tricks, 2015’s Sonic Soul Surfer and 2016’s Keepin’ The Horse Between Me & The Ground – broke into the top 10 of the official UK albums chart.
In 2018, Seasick Steve performed at BST Hyde Park. As well as at Budapest’s Sziget Festival in support of the album Can U Cook?
2020
In July 2020, he unveiled his gritty, foot-stomping record Love & Peace. Four months later, Seasick Steve followed it up with his acoustic album Blues In Mono. Which paid tribute to traditional acoustic country blues, recorded with a 1940s microphone and an old tape recording machine.
In February 2021, Seasick Steve announced nine solo UK shows in November 2021 as part of the Just Steve. A Guitar And You tour.
Announcing the tour, Seasick Steve said, “I‘m lookin’ forward to coming and playing for y’all. Just gonna be me, you and my guitar. A few songs and a few stories, kinda like we just hangin’ out together!”
In June 2024 Steve is set to release A Trip A Stumble A Fall Down on Your Knees. “This album was made by mistake,” he says in a statement. “As the title suggests we just tripped and stumbled into it. It became my favourite album ever and the piece of work I’m most proud of to date. There’s not a week goes by that I don’t thank my lucky stars for that night on the Hootenanny which has brought us here to this record”.
The album’s lead single ‘Backbone Slip’ was released on 14 February.
