Description

REPRESS. One of Steves most successful albums, You Cant Teach An Old Dog New Tricks. Fifth studio album by the hugely popular Steven Gene Wold aka Seasick Steve featuring legendary Led Zeppelin multi-instrumentalist, John Paul Jones.

There is a profound wisdom to old proverbs that belies the simple practical truth behind them. You Cant Teach An Old Dog New Tricks is one such timeless pearl, especially as it pertains to The Dog Hisself better known to his fans as Seasick Steve and a mini-crisis he underwent last year when asked to play Glastonburys 40th anniversary fest. Indirectly inspiring the title of his new album You Cant Teach An Old Dog New Tricks, Steve believes that even if I wanted to make something fancy, it wouldnt work. But perhaps that depends on how you define fancy, for in fact You Cant Teach An Old Dog New Tricks showcases Seasick Steve and his eccentric drum virtuoso sidekick Dan Magnusson flaunting some pretty fancy footwork as they agilely and adroitly step from genre to genre. In addition to Steves signature array of classic blues styles (of which he is acknowledged master), many new and previously unheard sides of Steves songwriting breadth are herein on display: songs that invoke musical territory that ranges from the Appalachian mountains to down home Kentucky bluegrass, from Nashville country gospel to Greenwich Village coffee house folk balladry. In the course of recording with Dan, Steve found himself hankering for a little something extra low end on some of the tracks: I was sitting there, daydreaming, thinking to myself, Itd be fun to have bass on a couple of these songs. And I thought, If I was to get me a bass player, whos like the best rock bass player around? Hey, I like that Led Zeppelin guy, he can play the hell out of a bass. Well, he agreed to play and Jones vigorous and supple bass work can be heard on the title track, You Cant Teach An Old Dog New Tricks and Back in the Doghouse; he also played mandolin on Its a Long, Long Way. That Long, Long Way song, we started playing it at the end of the festivals last year, recalls Steve. The thing that was a miracle was that all them kids started singing that song within one half of a chorus. It was amazing! I didnt think anyone was going to join in. So now weve played it quite a bit around and I just played it out in California. Everyone sings! And people goes, Yeah, thats a really cool song. Whose song is that? I remember that song. I go, Oh no you dont! The sing-a-long atmosphere carried over into the overdub sessions in London. Steve corralled everybody that works at AIR Studios in for a good old group caterwauling: All the secretaries, anyone in the kitchen, the whole gang they wanted to be called the Lyndhurst Rabble Choir.