Slaid Cleaves

Slaid Cleaves, the Austin-based performer handling vocals, guitar, and songwriting, draws core elements from country traditions and longstanding folk sources, yet his approach stood apart amid the abundance of comparable artists throughout the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s. Early recordings appeared in limited numbers during the first half of the 1990s, but wider attention arrived with No Angel Knows, issued on Rounder’s Philo subsidiary in 1997. Working alongside Gurf Morlix, the former Lucinda Williams guitarist, Cleaves merged his interests in folk songs, blues, and traditional country music into the hybrid style known as Americana. The album consequently reached strong positions on Americana-formatted stations throughout the United States and Canada during 1997, establishing the direction that would define subsequent work.

Before entering the music business, Cleaves concentrated on English and philosophy at Tufts University in his native New England region and participated in garage rock bands while still attending high school. During his college years he acquired guitar skills and later passed a summer in Ireland, where street performances in Cork prompted his decision to pursue life as a folksinger. At Tufts he refined his guitar technique while examining the catalogs of Woody Guthrie and Bruce Springsteen; childhood exposure to Guthrie, Carl Perkins, and Hank Williams had already occurred, leading him to retrieve a collection of related albums from his parents’ attic.

After an extended period in Portland, Maine, Cleaves relocated to Austin, Texas, in 1992 in search of fresh challenges. Even within a concentrated circle of notable songwriters that included Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Lucinda Williams, Robert Earl Keen, Guy Clark, and Joe Ely, he succeeded in building recognition locally. An independent release titled Life’s Other Side appeared on Rock Bottom Records in 1995. The following year he initiated his partnership with Morlix, who responded favorably to a demo and subsequently produced 1997’s No Angel Knows.

Over the next ten years Cleaves issued Broke Down in 2000 and Wishbones in 2004 before moving to Rounder proper for Unsung in 2006. After joining Jimmy LaFave and Kelcy Warren’s Music Road imprint he delivered Everything You Love Will Be Taken Away in 2009, which carried liner notes from admirer Stephen King, followed by the two-disc Sorrow & Smoke: Live at the Horseshoe Lounge in 2011 and Still Fighting the War in 2013. The title track of the last album drew inspiration from Craig F. Walker’s Pulitzer-winning photo essay on a soldier’s return to civilian existence. Ghost on the Car Radio, released in 2017, examined longstanding patterns of American small-town experience.