Yahoo! Music Review

Released on 10/11/08
Label: Warners

Hobo-turned-dependable-festival fixture Seasick Steve was recently castigated in the declining pages of NME for somehow glamourising homelessness; that by drawing on his life experience as source material for his songs, the one-time itinerant blues man would obviously turn a generation of otherwise comfortable indie kids on to the dubious delights of sleeping rough and begging for change outside their local train station. Phew! It's a good thing that a talentless no-mark junkie has never topped their so-called Cool List, eh readers?

Despite the sixty-something's obvious talent with three strings, a stamping foot and the kind of rambling stories that can keep an audience rapt for hours at a time, "Walkin' Man" - lovely though it is - is hardly single material. Taken in isolation, Seasick Steve's earthy charm becomes stripped of the humanity that glows at the heart of his work but sadly, the heat barely registers in such a short space of time.

    by Julian Marszalek