Slaid cleaves

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Slaid cleaves

Richard Slaid Cleaves (born June 9, 1964 in Washington, DC ) is an American musician, singer and songwriter who commutes between the areas of alternative country , Americana and singer-songwriter .

Life

Slaid Cleaves ( Richard was never his first name) grew up in South Berwick and Round Pond, Maine . In high school, he formed a garage band with friend Rod Picott , whom he had known since childhood. Cleaves and Pickett were particularly fond of Bruce Springsteen's early records , so they named their band The Magic Rats - after a character in Springsteen's song Jungleland . After school Slaid Cleaves left his home state of Maine to at Tufts University in the US state of Massachusetts to study., Where he graduated in English and philosophy. A guest semester brought him to Cork , Ireland, where he lived out his love for American artists such as Johnny Cash , Hank Williams , Tom Waits and many others and - initially out of boredom - learned to play their songs. He made his debut in Europe in 1985, of all places: as a street singer in the pedestrian zone of Cork. After completing his studies, Cleaves finally devoted himself to music and tried to secure his livelihood with various jobs. He worked as a caretaker, ice cream seller, warehouse worker, film developer, pizza driver - and even as a human guinea pig: he took part in a series of experiments for a pharmaceutical company for a fee.

After a few unsuccessful attempts, Cleaves released his debut cassette The Promise on his own in 1990 . The following year the next cassette was released, this time with a full rock line-up - and it finally got attention. Several well-attended performances and positive press in Maine prompted him to move to the live metropolis of the USA, Austin , Texas , in 1991 with his wife Karen . In 1992 he won the prestigious New Folk competition at the Kerrville Folk Festival . Predecessors for this award were a. Nanci Griffith , Robert Earl Keen and Steve Earle . In the following years he played frequently in the numerous clubs in and around Austin, toured and honed his art of songwriting. It was not until 1997 that Slaid Cleaves recorded his first US-wide CD: No Angel Knows appeared on Rounder Records on the Philo sub-label . Since then, Cleaves has remained loyal to his record label.

In 2000, Cleaves first achieved major success when his CD Broke Down landed in the Americana charts . He wrote the title song together with his childhood friend Rod Picott. From now on the sales increased, there were also re-releases of older recordings. In 2006 he released Unsung , a collection of songs by other authors, mostly from friends in the Austin scene like Graham Weber, JJ Baron, Michael O'Connor and Adam Carroll .

In 2009 Cleaves came to literary honors: Nicholson Baker had his character Paul Chowder in the novel The Anthologist say on the first page that “the kind of folk music I like often has a country touch.” It goes on: “Listen Look at Slaid Cleaves, who now lives in Texas ”.

Slaid Cleaves tours regularly all over the USA and Europe, solo or with a band, but still plays most often in his adopted home Austin.

Discography

  • The Promise (Cassette, 1990)
  • Looks Good From the Road (Cassette, 1991)
  • The Promise / Looks Good From the Road (1998 CD re-release)
  • Life's Other Side (1992 on cassette, 1997 on CD)
  • For the Brave and Free (1993 on cassette, 2001 on CD)
  • No Angel Knows (1997)
  • Broke Down (2000)
  • Holiday Sampler EP (2001)
  • Wishbones (2004)
  • Unsung (2006)
  • Everything You Love Will Be Taken Away (2009)
  • Still Fighting The War (2013)

Further investments

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Henkle, Doug, "FolkLib Index"
  2. ↑ Ferguson, Laura, Rounder's Fellow Rebels (Eng.)
  3. ↑ Caliguri, Jim Meet the New Boss (Eng.)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Cleaves, Slaid
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cleaves, Richard Slaid (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American country musician and songwriter
DATE OF BIRTH June 9, 1964
PLACE OF BIRTH Washington, DC