SLAID CLEAVES: GET TO KNOW HIM AND HIS TOP FIVE RECORDS

Today you have the pleasure of learning more about Slade Cleaves.  He picked these five records:

 

SWORDFISHTROMBONES – TOM WAITS

NEBRASKA - BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS RECORDINGS - WOODY GUTHRIE

MISSION OF THE CROSSROADS PALMS - STEVE FORBERT

DEAR DANGER- BILLY HARVEY

 

Joseph Hudak of Rolling Stone Country calls Cleaves “a master storyteller, one influenced not by the shine of pop-culture but by the dirt of real life.”

 

While he released a handful of recordings during the early '90s, he gained significant notice with No Angel Knows, which was released on Rounder's Philo subsidiary in 1997. Joined by former Lucinda Williams guitarist and producer Gurf Morlix, and combined his interest in folk songs, early rock and roll, and traditional country music into an amalgamation of styles becoming known at that time as Americana.

After reading in Rolling Stone about Bruce Springsteen's inspirations for the Nebraska album, he climbed into his parents' attic to rediscover the treasure trove of albums which he recalled hearing as a child – Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Chuck Berry - and which became his guide to becoming a stellar songwriter.

After signing with Jimmy LaFave's Music Road Records, he issued Everything You Love Will Be Taken Away (2009, featuring liner notes from fan Stephen King), the two-disc Sorrow & Smoke: Live at the Horseshoe Lounge (2011), and Still Fighting the War (2013), produced by beloved Austin guitarist Scrappy Jud Newcomb. The album was praised as "one of the year's best albums" by American Songwriter and "carefully crafted, . . . songs about the struggles of the heart in hard times" by the Wall Street Journal. The New York Daily News called his music "a treasure hidden in plain sight," while the Austin Chronicle declared, "there are few contemporaries that compare. He's become a master craftsman on the order of Guy Clark and John Prine."

I would like to mention that there are no advertisements in this podcast.  I have a truckload of fun doing this but it takes at least 20 hours to research, listen, record, edit, and produce each episode.  If you are willing to help, you can support on my Patreon which is https://www.patreon.com/MyTopFiveRecords

Close your eyes.  You’ve got your top 5 records on your iPhone and you are doing chores around your house.  What 5 records do you have?

www.slaid.com 

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