Slaid Cleaves – “Everything You Love Will Be Taken Away”
Having released only two albums of original material in the decade (Wishbone in 2004 and Broke Down in 2000), the Maine-born and Austin-based Slaid Cleaves is certainly not known for his prolific nature.
However, his newest record, Everything You Love Will Be Taken Away, is a testament to the saying “quality over quantity” providing a new set of 11 beautifully woven tunes.
The opening track Cry introduces the album title and general theme for the rest of the album with Bill Harvey providing drums, percussion, bass, guitar and piano.
There are ballads including the album’s only cover song and requisite murder song Run Jolee Run written by Ray Bonneville as well as Twistin’, a somber tale sung from the executioner’s point-of-view.
The bluegrass-flavored Green Mountains and Me is the kind of song that you’ll walk around humming for a week features Gene Elders on fiddle and Trish Murphy singing harmony.
Others worth checking out are the slightly cynical Beautiful Thing and the softer Beyond Love and Dreams.
Some of the other musicians making appearances are Gurf Morlix Rick Richards, Michael O’Conner, Steven Foley.
Produced with Gurf, Charles Arthur, and Bill Harvey, Everything You Love Will Be Taken Away is available today, April 21 from Music Road Records.
Slaid will be hitting the road with Texas dates in May and then he’ll head west to California, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado in June and July.
Visit Slaid’s website for tour dates and more info.
This is the second review I’ve read that says Cleaves hasn’t released an album since 2004’s “Wishbones.” That’s just not right. On May 23, 2006, he released “Unsung,” a full-length CD on the Rounder label. A 2-minute fact checking trip to iTunes or Amazon would have confirmed this. The man makes great music. Check out “Unsung.”
Yes, Jim, you are correct – Unsung was released in 2006 however it is a collection of cover songs, not Slaid’s own writing. I have changed the wording to read “only two albums of original material” to avoid any further confusion.
Fair point, Nicole. The really important point is to introduce more people to his music. Thanks for the review.