Release Date: Mar 30, 2010
Genre(s): Folk, Blues
Record label: Ryko
Music Critic Score
How the Music Critic Score works
I don’t know Steve’s age. If I had to guess, I would say he is 135 years old. Granted, Man From Another Time is only his third album, but judging from his voice and his sound, this record was likely recorded by Alan Lomax. Actually, the album was produced, written, recorded, and engineered by Steve himself, exclusively using valve amps, ribbon mics, and an arsenal of stringed instruments either found by the side of the road or built from parts found on the side of the road.
Anyone who owns "Seasick" Steve Wold's 2008 breakthrough album I Started Out With Nothin' and I Still Got Most of It Left won't gain too much from the follow-up. Wold's wheezing vocal still sounds as if he washed whisky down with dust, and he hasn't suddenly started singing about scoring a top 10 hit or packing them in at the Royal Albert Hall. His lyrical concerns are still rooted in a life he had left behind even before he became successful - it's certainly hard to imagine him spending too many days riding public transport now, as he does on Just Because I Can, or riding his tractor all day long (Big Green and Yeller).
Exudes an effortlessness that can only come from a lot of living. Nick Barraclough 2009 There aren’t many artists around who can get a groove out of a one-stringed guitar, but Seasick Steve can. It’s not so much a guitar as a piece of two by four with a string nailed to it. He calls it his Diddley Bow, and the resultant groove is exactly that as laid down by the bloke who (almost) had that name, only in reverse.