1. Started Out With Nothin 2. Walkin Man 3. St Louis Slim 4. Happy Man 5. Prospect Lane 6. Thunderbird 7. Fly By Night 8. Just Like A King 9. One True 10. Chiggers 11. My Youth

The most unlikely of stars, sixty-something Seasick Steve Wold might have started out with nothin , but these days he can headline the Royal Albert Hall. The second solo album from the much travelled bluesman (and, let s not forget, studio owner--he didn t suddenly step off a boxcar with a demo tape in hand--refines the sound that made 2006 s Dog House Music so instantly appealing. Guests include Ruby Turner, KT Tunstall (playing rather than singing) and Nick Cave and Grinderman--Cave and Steve duet on their collaboration Just Like a King. The title track, Started out With Nothin , is as catchy as it is wise, One True laments Steve s late dog (my one true friend, of course) and the catchy full-band Happy Man, featuring Turner and Tunstall is as near as Seasick gets to offering a single. Without the visual impact of seeing an elderly man tell travel stories in between torturing a three string guitar while kicking a wooden box, I Started out With Nothin and I Still Got Most of It Left c...

#Seasick Steve - The man, the hat, the beard and the music. (2008-11-20) I first saw / heard Seasick Steve (Steve Wold) on Jools Holland s Later TV show on the BBC a couple of years ago. I wasn t quite sure what to expect when he appeared on my TV screen. He looked more like a busker than a star in the making, but by the time he had finished his song, I was a fan, along with thousands of others who saw him that night. In short, he blew us all away. He was on the show again recently in order to publicise this new album and guess what, he blew us away again! The star performer. Th...

#Get the blues (2008-11-12) Some people have got quite wound up about this guy being popular when there are lots of other real blues artists who deserve more attention. . . I m no expert, but Seasick Steve s music seems fairly authentic and it s a good listen. The spoken introductions are a little annoying after a while, though, (to me, at least). Maybe he ll lead people on to other sorts of blues, which has to be a good thing. And if you like this, can I recommend you give Chris Whitley a try?

#loved it (2008-11-10) I will be honest, this popped up on my screen as an other people have bought this recommendation from Amazon, and I bought it on the strength of other curstomer reviews and mainly for the title - I really wanted this CD on my shelf. I have just listened to it for the first time - and you know what? It is excellent, I love it. Strongly recommended.

#Not the down dirty boogie I was hoping for, but still good. (2008-11-04) I bought this album like many others I guess, after catching steve on Jools Holland and watching some live performances on youtube. I was a little dissapointed, now dont get me wrong, I m not slamming this album, its very good, with some nice songs and polished production values, and therein lies the problem for me, this didnt sound like the stuff I heard elsewhere, its. . sanitized? It doesent seem to have the raw enrgy and refreshing simplicity, there are drums and percussion and backing singers and apart fr...

#terrible, just terrible .. (2008-10-30) There s nothing on offer in this album. Absolutely terrible effort. Do yourself a favour and buy a Supersuckers CD instead.

1. Yellow Dog 2. Things Go Up 3. Cut My Wings 4. Fallen Off A Rock 5. Dog House Boogie 6. Save Me 7. Hobo Low 8. Shirly Lou 9. My Donny 10. Dead Song 11. Last Po Man 12. Salem Blues 13. I m Gone

Seasick Steve is Steve Wold, a moustachioed American bluesman who, on Dog House Music, plays American roots music with the tight-belt economy and authentic spirit of the genre s originators (there s a lineage here, too - Steve was taught his first chords by Delta bluesman KC Douglas). A long-term street-dweller, Wold s instrumentation is simplistic in the extreme: a three-stringed trance guitar, a slide instrument known as the one-stringed diddy-bo , and the Mississippi Drum Machine, a wooden box that provides the most rudimentary percussion. In the true blues spirit, Seasick Steve sings his life. For an autobiography of sorts, head for Dog House Boogie , a phlegmatic timeline that commences at the age of four with his parent s divorce, and rambles off through several decades of vagrant living and downhome manners. Hobo Low is perhaps the sharpest, best distilled take on Steve s drifter philosophy, his voice raising to quivering, booming peaks over sparse stabs of blues guitar. Sa...

#Raw, honest, foot-tapping fun (2008-08-07) Like others, I saw the man on Jools Holland. I suppose the romantic in me loved the idea that this guy had experienced the lowest of the lows but had come through it all and was here playing his 3-string geetar live on the JH show. However, I liked what I heard and his enthusiasm for the blues was infectious. Okay, it s not as polished as the great blues musicians and he s not going to outdo Robert Cray for technical ability but just listen to the stories he tells and you ll be tapping your foot along. We all love to see people do well th...

#Modern Music (2008-07-25) Contemporary music troubles me, Ive been listening to blues for years and suddenly someone new plays the same stuff thats been around for decades and its cool. If you want to listen to this kind of music, listen to delta blues: son house, robert johnson. This is pretty unoriginal. . . thats not to say he s not talented, but the founders of this music get no recognition but this guy does? it makes no sense.

#Thank Heavens for Jules (2008-05-23) I am another who saw the performance on Jools show and yet another who was amazed. I am new to the Blues so forgive me if I can t liken it to anything else. As I listened to this I could imagine myself sat on some wooden porch on the edge of a swamp listening to some real homestrung blues. Very raw but very real and all with three strings. Amazing stuff. If you enjoy the blues this is highly recommended - all from such an unimposing figure - he really looks like he just turns up with his geetar, beat box and nothing else.

#Stunned! (2008-02-13) I first heard a bit of him on the Jools Holland show and decided to give the album a go. Well, what can I say? Absolutely fantastic! Never a big fan of old time blues but this is something different.

#Suprised (2008-02-13) I Picked this album up as a wonder if this is any good. Worth a Laugh, Bit Tom Petty Esk, Love it!

1. Ring Of Fire 2. I Walk The Line 3. Jackson - Johnny Cash, June Carter 4. Folsom Prison Blues 5. A Boy Named Sue 6. Big River 7. Get Rhythm 8. Cry! Cry! Cry! 9. Hey Porter 10. A Thing Called Love 11. Guess Things Happen That Way 12. San Quentin 13. Man In Black 14. Highwayman - Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson 15. The Wanderer - U2, Johnny Cash 16. I ve Been Everywhere 17. Rusty Cage 18. Personal Jesus 19. Give My Love To Rose 20. One 21. Hurt

#Cash...Priceless. (2008-11-27) I bought this album because I like a lot of the songs on the album and just wanted a general overview of Cash s career. I was also thrilled to see a cover of One by U2 on it (one of my favourite songs by them), and a couple of live songs, A Boy Named Sue in particular, because he was just such an incredible showman and it was great to listen to this imagining being there to witness him delivering such great performances. This is a brilliant album and brilliant value for money, a great introduction to, or overview of, Cash s career.

#The best of Johnny Cash captured on one CD (2008-09-22) At first I was skeptical of the whole Johnny Cash is a great musician/songwriter, and thought it was oldie country music for the oldies to reminisce about, and say how they never make music like they used to, that was until I was given this CD to try after seeing the film based upon his life. Johnny Cash is without doubt a very clever songwriter/commentator with catchy 2-3min songs that reveal a story with very poignant and/or witty poetry set to music you ll hum along to after very few listens. Clear examples of this can be foun...

#True Legend (2008-08-28) This is a great intro to new fans of Johnny Cash, a true icon whose music covered several generations. When I first played it and the trumpets of Ring of Fire came on I wandered if I d done the right thing ! The early tracks are pure 50s country, a complete contrast to the later U2/Depeche Mode covers/corroborations. There s something for everyone here but don t just buy it for the later stuff. Cash has an amazing deep and warm voice, full of charisma and soul. It would have almost been worth being banged up in the notorious San Quentin to have seen him pl...

#fantastic! (2007-12-15) I d never heard of Johnny Cash until this cd appeared in the cd player at work. Needless to say, it came home with me about a week later, and has been in my car ever since. There s something about johnny Cash that is totally mesmerising, & i m even more hooked since watching walk the line, which is one of my favourite films. This deserves a place in every CD collection.

#Top rate (2007-10-30) If you can only afford one CD from the Man in Black, get this one. All the classics from the great man. Superb.

1. Po Lazarus - J Carter & The Prisoners 2. Big Rock Candy Mountain - Harry McLintock 3. You Are My Sunshine - Norman Blake 4. Down In The River To Pray 5. I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow - Soggy Bottom Boys 6. Hard Time Killing Floor Blues - Chris Thomas King 7. I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow (inst.) - Norman Blake 8. Keep on the Sunny Side of Life - The Whites 9. I ll Fly Away - Gillian Welch & Alison Kraus 10. Didn t Leave Nobody but the Baby - Emmy Lou Harris,Gillian Welch & Alison Kraus 11. In The Highways - The Peasall Sisters 12. I Am Weary - The Cox Family 13. I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow (inst.) - John Hartford 14. O Death - Ralph Stanley 15. In the Jailhouse Now - Soggy Bottom Boys 16. I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow (with band) - Soggy Bottom Boys 17. Indian War Whoop - John Hartford 18. Lonesome Valley - The Fairfield Four 19. Angel Band - The Stanley Brothers 20. O Brother, Where Art Thou? / Enhanced Data - Soundtrack

Joel and Ethan Coen have long established themselves as film stylists without peer: from Blood Simple to Fargo, their movies have never been less than fascinating, and there has never been any question that their films could not have been made by anyone else. In T-Bone Burnett, the producer of the soundtrack for O Brother, Where Art Thou?, they have finally met their match: Burnett s work in assembling a collection of pieces for the Depression-set film is as skilled and entrancing as the film itself.Despite the presence of Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch, Alison Krauss and bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley, the stars here are the songs themselves, a host of traditional songs augmented by archival recordings. The collection is also a showcase for a host of lesser known and forgotten bluegrass masters: The Cox Family, collaborators with Krauss, Norman Blake, a sideman for Bob Dylan and June Carter Cash, country gospel group The Whites, who once counted Ricky Skaggs as a member (and who, here,...

#Stunning, evocative music. (2008-04-14) I m not from the US, my family hail from Kashmir and I was born in the UK, grew up listening to punk rock but WOW! The soundtrack literally drips with the era and place it hails from, every time I hear a snippet I swear I can feel the heat and smell the wheat - so amazing!

#Diverse selection of old-time music (2005-07-01) The music here, like the film it provides the soundtrack for, is presumably intended to take us back to the thirties. Several songs from that era are featured along with traditional material that would have been popular then. Recorded mainly with state-of-the-art technology (except for some old recordings that are included and re-mastered), the sound quality is far superior to anything available in the thirties. Several different types of music can be found here - blues, gospel, country and folk - mainly performed by contemporary arti...

#a lovely mix of traditional music (2003-11-04) Performed by some of today s best singers, this multi-Grammy Award winner is a marvelous addition to any country/folk music collection. Some of these artists are at the top of their field, but some will be discoveries for most of us, like the beautiful rendition of Hard Time Killing Floor Blues by Chris Thomas King, a versatile young man who is versed in many styles, and here sings in the old blues tradition and does it brilliantly. The highlights for me are: The legendary Ralph Stanley, with his plaintive acappella chant of O Death, whic...

#oh brother where art thou (2002-07-13) first class traditional country and a bit of bluegrass. represents excelent value for money. so many good tracks its hard to pick one that shines above the rest. listen to YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE by norman blake if you are not tapping your toes then someone has nailed your feet to the floor. then there s I m a man of constant sorrow-Soggy bottom boys Wow!then for a real treat try The Stanley Bros. Angel Band Traditional country at its best. many other great tracks from Alison Krauss the queen of country and the Whites with keep on the sunny side...

#GREAT ALBUM . . . BUT TRY BEFORE YOU BUY (2002-06-06) Let me make one thing clear. ",O Brother. . . ", is one of my favourite films of all time. Not only that, but the musical soundtrack is one of its strongest features and stands as a valuable cultural document in its own right. In short, this is an album that anyone who loves country, bluegrass or folk music is likely to want in their collection. So why, as I write, am I tossing up whether to only give it four stars? The answer is that I m attempting to review it, not as a collector s item or a socio-historical document b...

1. Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain 2. Dust On The Bible 3. I m So Lonesome I Could Cry 4. I Heard My Savior Calling Me 5. Precious Lord Take My Hand 6. Hey Good Lookin 7. On Top Of Old Smoky 8. I Can t Tell My Heart That 9. I Dreamed That The Great Judgment Morning 10. Next Sunday Darling Is My Birthday 11. At The First Fall Of Snow 12. Dear John 13. Blind Child s Prayer 14. I ll Have A New Life 15. On The Banks Of The Pontchartrain 16. Low And Lonely 17. Drifting Too Far From The Shore 18. I m Gonna Sing

#As good as Hank Williams got (2008-11-27) It s rare than an artist whose been turned into an icon can ever again be seen in mortal form. But such is the case for the Hank Williams heard on these three CD s of transcriptions from 1951. With these fifty-four previously unreleased tracks, the dark saint of country music is delivered from fifty-five years of canonization as a hard-working musician striving to please his audience. Williams much anthologized commercial recordings will forever keep his star aloft, but these newly released live-in-the-studio renderings, waxed under the spo...

#More to come.... (2008-11-11) I agree with Kevan - this is just the first of three box sets, apparently and very fine it is too. It s a bit frustrating knowing that there are 15 CDs worth of programmes out there and only 9 will get an official release. The sound quality is great and has obviously been cleaned up from the original acetates - unfortunately, most of the chat from the shows has been taken out and that s the big loss, for me with this set, because it provides a fascinating insight into the band dynamic of the Driftin Cowboys. I d give it more than 5 out of 5 too, but for ...

#A Truly Wonderful Release! (2008-10-30) I feel bad giving this box set 5 stars - it honestly deserves more!! These recordings really are the holy grail for country music fans (though they might be called unreleased but if you know where to look they ve been available via the internet for years!). It s hard to fault it (well, I can actually but I ll come to that later) - a marvellous selection of songs, some well known in other versions but the majority not previously available, very nice packaging, far better than the earlier Complete Hank Williams, with a great booklet, and with a...