Seasick Steve ─ Ramblin' Man

It remains one of the most remarkable breakthroughs in music history. Until New Year's Eve, 2006, former hobo Steven Gene Wold, a 65-year-old blues musician, playing a beat-up, three-string guitar (aka The Three-String Trance Wonder, or "the biggest piece of shit in the world") and stomping on a wooden box with a Mississippi motorcycle plate stuck on (aka The Mississippi Drum Machine), was hardly known outside his tiny community of fans. That performance of "Dog House Boogie" before Jools Holland and his dumbstruck Hootenanny audience projected Seasick Steve into the big league. Dog House Music sold out overnight. 2007 brought a MOJO, Reading and Glastonbury, and 2008 worldwide success and his major label debut. The rest, as they say, is history. Behind this unique and authentic performer's rise is 65 years of fascinating life story: he left home at 13 to escape his stepfather's beatings, and his professional career only began after decades on the road. But blues guitar was in his blood: he learned from blues legend KC Douglas in his grandfather's garage. Part of Steve, the hollerin', stompin' blues, and the gorgeous homemade guitars is magical musical history. But he's also a modern, versatile musician, who can rock as hard as Dave Grohl, and who's rubbed shoulders with the likes of Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell, and Kurt Cobain.

Matthew Wright is a music writer.