In response to Jim Clark's bilious, ill-informed and borderline paranoid, rant.

"impersonating a tramp with a beaten up 3 string guitar can get you a long way if you happen to have an American accent and a bit of gaul in Scandinavia,"

Erm, please do a wee bit of research. Seasick Steve was a tramp for many years.

"this tuneless pretentious guitar thrasher"

Tuneless? You really can't having watching the same clip.

"ocean of superb acoustic acts"

Please point to them specifically. I found George Hutchinson. Fairly competent, but horribly uncharismatic. And Bottleneck Bill. Again OK, but dreary, and actually not tuned correctly. Ironic, given your comment above.

"corrupt".

What? You reckon Seasick or his tiny independent record label paid to be on the Hootenanny?! I've seen Steve several times over the last two or three years and he has always put on a magnificent, engaging show. He also can play very subtly, something which hasn't been shown off on Jools or many of the Youtube videos of him. Try searching 'walking man' on Youtube. Or listen to Salem Blues, Shirly Lou, or I'm Gone from Dog House Music.

In fact I'd advise quite a few of the people who've dismissed Steve peremptorily on this thread to actually attend a gig and listen to his albums before sounding off. I really wish I could find slide-players at "ten-a-penny" who are as good as Steve, I really do. I go to lots of gigs and listen to lots and lots of blues music out there. There aren't that many, and when I do find them, technical ability is just about all they've got.

I agree with Matt Milton about Duke Garwood (someone Steve has had support him on several occasions) and The Fuji. Will check out those others.

By the way Jim, your videos are out of synch, and are not very well-executed anyway. It all seems a rather dry and slightly pointless exercise, though it did seem interesting in concept at first.

And yes Jim, aren't the plebs who are buying Steve's records in their thousands silly and inferior. You want to preserve the blues as a museum piece it seems to me, not a living breathing entity. At the very least you ought to be thankful that Steve (just like The White Stripes, who I suspect you don't rate - correct me if I'm wrong) is introducing youngsters to the likes of Son House, Mississippi Fred McDowell and Charley Patton.

I held off submitting this until I saw Mr Clark's contribution, but the earlier comments from people who'd obviously made no attempt to look up Steve's background or his music (other than his Jools appearance) really wound me up too.