Album Review: Seasick Steve - Hubcap Music

Everyone's favourite train-hoppin', sly-grinnin', whiskey swillin' former hobo is back for another record, and he's asked a few big named friends to join him. Hubcap Music is his sixth effort so far; the name of which came to him from a guitar that he frequently plays made from two hubcaps joined back to back. His 'Morris Minor guitar' can be safely assumed to feature in many of the dirty blues tracks that make up the album, as do two gentlemen that go by the names John Paul Jones and Jack White.

The Way I Do starts slowly with a filthy little lick and big, big drums. It builds and builds until the whole room is thumping, and then comes right back down to almost nothing, leaving plenty of room for White's double-tracked solo to absolutely wail. By contrast, his cowboy roots are shown in Purple Shadows, with gentle acoustic strumming and male/female vocal duet. Very stylistically, Seasick Steve is the revving motor at the start and the finish of the album, as a not-so-inconspicuous reminder of the album's title. The motor runs into Down On The Farm, a romping slide number that would make the likes of Ash Grunwald start licking his chops, and out of Coast Is Clear, in which Seasick Steve explores brass and church organ arrangements, and his own soul side.

This album explores all corners of blues music and its runoffs, out into rock'n'roll, roots, country and gospel styles, and it does them deliciously. The simplicity of his style could easily be a trap for anyone else to fall into mundanity, but Seasick Steve's sheer life experience shines through and makes it special.