b. Steven Wold, c.1945, Oakland, California, USA. Wold spent his childhood in a broken home and from his early teens struck out alone to roam throughout the USA. The hobo existence was fraught with difficulties, and doubtless dangers, but in time the experiences he endured helped form a distinctive approach to music. Although the genre in which he works is the blues, Wold draws in elements of folk giving his guitar playing and singing an intriguing mix of brooding and airiness. In the 60s he played in bars along the western seaboard of the USA, gradually building a following and more importantly peer recognition. He worked with Lightin' Hopkins, Freddie King and others, was a studio session musician, and he also tried his hand at record production. In the early 70s he lived for a while in Paris, France, then England in the 80s, then moved back to the USA to Olympia, Washington, where he was mostly to be heard playing blues for local, and often youthful, audiences. He has also lived in Oslo, Norway (his wife is Norwegian), and while there linked up with a local band, the Level Devils.
Wold's instrument of choice is a guitar and apart from the orthodox instrument he also plays one that has only three strings; this is how it was when he bought it and he has never bothered to fill the gap. He also plays a customized single-string guitar and uses as rhythmic accompaniment a wooden box on which he beats time with his foot. Just as his playing style, sound and musical genre make him a distinctive musician, so too does his choice of name: Seasick Steve.
Playing solo and sometimes with an accompanying group, the Level Devils, Wold has gained a following in Europe and the UK, performing at blues and folk clubs and festivals through into the mid-00s. At these venues he has proved to be one of the most entertaining artists in the musical forms of which he is an accomplished practitioners. His storytelling through song reflects the peripatetic life he has led, and is depicted with wit and perspicacity.
